Anyone actively political in a way that’s embarassing or inconvenient to the Labour government is now, officially, a terrorist.
Happening in my home town now: some students in a shared house smoked dope, had some replica weapons, started getting interested in anticapitalism and antiracism/fascism, and engaged in a little light graffiti. They got raided for the dope and they’re now all in prison under the Terrorist Act.
Why are nonviolent potential student protestors and a 16 year-old schoolboy, who’ve yet (other than the graffiti artist) to even protest, let alone commit a known offence, being held as terrorists?
Apparently Devon and Cornwall police found “literature relating to political ideology†in the house. Oh, and knives.
If this is terrorism, we’re all fucked. I certainly would be if having “literature relating to political ideology†is what the police now characterise as terrorism.
Do I have to tell my children, quick, burn your copies of Naomi Klein and Malcolm X for fear of a knock by the plod? Were I in the UK and not on dialysis I would undoubtedly have been on my way to the G20 today to protest by any means necessary. It certainly could’ve been me or many people I know (none of whom are terrorists by any stretch of the imagination) arrested, our homes raided and lives deliberately ruined by politically motivated police, if that’s what makes you a terrorist.
These are trumped-up arrests on trumped-up evidence meant to politically intimidate legitimate protestors who do not agree with the government and to permanently label them (and anyone they know or associate with) as terrorists. It doesn’t matter that the students will probably be quietly released with no charges after the G20. Just the fact you’ve been arrested under the Act is enough to label you forever. You’re in the database now.
“Computers have also been seized for examination.” say Plymouth police. Yes, multiple computers with multiple users, not to mention multiple mobile phones, in 2 shared student houses. Since when have students been guilty of what their housemates read online or text to their mates?
But how very handy for the police to be able to hoover up who knows how many innocent yet politically inconvenient email or facebook friends or bloggers or LJ readers for Jacqui Smith’s handy little database of dissidents (if her husband hasn’t left the USB stick at Spearmint Rhino already).
I don’t know as yet whether any activists I know personally have been swept into the Terrorist Act’s net as a result of this blatant act of deliberate political intimidation – because the arrestees have yet to be charged, let alone named – but that’s hardly the point.
This is happening now, today, to mere schoolboys and student activists, and no-one who speaks out against the current form of government is safe from unjustified, politically motivated intimidation and imprisonment.
