UK - Leaked Ministry Of Justice Docs List Environmental Protestors Alongside Al Qaeda, IRA Members

[hatrack]

Government officials have labelled environmental campaigners extremists and listed them alongside dissident Irish republican groups and terrorists inspired by al-Qaida in internal documents seen by the Guardian. The guidance on extremism, produced by the Ministry of Justice, says: "The United Kingdom like many other countries faces a continuing threat from extremists who believe they can advance their aims by committing acts of terrorism." It was sent to probation staff who were writing court reports or supervising a range of activists, including environmental protesters.

The advice lists "environmental extremists" alongside far-right activists, dissident Irish republicans, loyalist paramilitaries and al-Qaida-inspired extremists as among groups "currently categorised as extremist may include those who have committed serious crime in pursuit of an ideology or cause".

David Howarth, the Liberal Democrats' justice spokesman, said tonight that the documents revealed "a quite astonishing conflation of legitimate protest with terrorism".

The government has been criticised for tarring environmental protesters as "domestic extremists", a term invented by the police, who say it can cover activists suspected of minor public order offences such as peaceful direct action and civil disobedience. The internal guidance from the Ministry of Justice's National Offender Management Service defines domestic extremism as any "unlawful action that is part of a protest or campaign". "It is often associated with a 'single issue' protest such as animal rights, far-right and far-left political extremism, anti- war and environmentalist extremism. The activity of Domestic Extremist Offenders is more criminal in its nature than that of an activist – but falls short of terrorism."

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/26/ministry-justice-environmental-campaigners-terrorism

Do we all understand now? Civil Disobedience = Extremism. Extremism = Terrorism. That was easy, wasn't it?

[pleah]

1. K&R Not shocked, though.

[ThomCat]

2. The US Govenrment thinks it is a sign that you may be a terrorist

if you have a copy of the constitution and bill of rights, and think they should be upheld.
if you are an environmentalist, or a vegan.
If you are a peace activist, or a pacifist.

They don't think you are a terrorist if you are right-to-life protester despite their history of firebombings, property damage, snipers, and assassinations around the country, and their websites where they promote violence, and publish the addresses and personal information of doctors they want to see hunted down.

They don't don't seem to consider the white supremacists and their militias terrorists despite their amassing weapons, training, and the Oklahoma City bombing. Though I certainly hope I'm wrong and they've got these people thoroughly infiltrated by now.

Combine this with ongoing militarization of law enforcement, so that more and more often the police are the ones terrorizing us, violating our civil rights and illegally detaining people indefinitely and falsifying reasons for it, and not even getting slapped on the wrist for it...

It just goes to show you that the fucked up the priorities about who is, and isn't a terrorist aren't just in any one place. Apparently, once you get into law enforcement something fucks up your head and you lose the ability to figure out who the real terrorists are, and somethings they Become the terrorists themselves. :(