The Reverend Sue Parfitt, from Bristol, was detained for holding a placard that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” She was among more than 27 people arrested on Saturday for acts of defiance against the proscription.
The Reverend Sue Parfitt, from Bristol, was detained for holding a placard that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” She was among more than 27 people arrested on Saturday for acts of defiance against the proscription.
I do think that arresting people for voicing their support is counter-productive, unnecessarily heavy-handed and at the very least controversial from a freedom-of-speech point of view.
But I don’t see how the government should not ban a group that resorts to sabotage to achieve their political goals? Any state – democratically legitimized or no – will be very twitchy about stuff that touches national security.
Am I missing some nuance here?
The nuance here is that they’ve been proscribed as a terrorist group. They are a direct action group but they don’t hurt people, just damage property. That’s a crime, but it’s not terrorism. They can and should be tried for criminal damage, B&E, damage to government property etc, but this is a freedom of protest issue, and now freedom of speech, too, since I can no longer say things like “I think Palestine Action went too far, but they’re fighting for a just cause”, for example, because I’d be expressing support for a terrorist group and therefore committing a crime.
Compare to e.g. the suffragette movement who bombed buildings and all kinds to get the vote for women: they’re now lauded by the same person who proscribed this group. Or more recent examples like just stop oil or the protesters that threw the Edward Colson statue into the River Avon. They were tried for criminal damages. Then recently, some protesters have been starting to get tried under the far, far harsher anti terrorism laws, usually when it involves protesting Israel’s war crimes. These are the laws that allow things like extended detention in solitary without charge or phone calls, massively longer sentences and all manner of nasty punishments. It’s clearly a power grab to reduce the will to protest.