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The sort of thing that even the Tories would probably think twice about. How the hell is throwing some paint at a stationary plane an act of terrorism?!
Kill thousands of civilians in a genocide, however...
If you support Palestine, you're a terrorist... on 09:30 - Jun 29 by jayessess
People have done this sort of thing as protest for 100 years or more, from dockers refusing to load military supplies to our side of the Russian Civil War through Spies for Peace in the 1960s via Greenham Common in the 1980s and the Fairford Five in 2003.
The governments of the day weren't hysterical enough to decide the people involved were bloody enemy combatants.
There was also this in the 70s, about which there was a documentary called Nae Pasaran.
Despite the following, the House of Commons voted to ban Palestine Action today, and to their shame only 26 MPs voted against, among them 9 Labour MPs, 6 Lib Dem MPs and 4 Green MPs.
UN experts* today urged the United Kingdom not to ban the “direct action” group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000.
“We are concerned at the unjustified labelling of a political protest movement as ‘terrorist’,” the experts said. “According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.”
“While there is no binding definition of terrorism in international law, best practice international standards limit terrorism to criminal acts intended to cause death, serious personal injury or hostage taking, in order to intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act,” the experts said.
“The UK supported this approach in voting for Security Council resolution 1566 in 2004,” they said. “Mere property damage, without endangering life, is not sufficiently serious to qualify as terrorism.”
[Post edited 2 Jul 18:15]
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If you support Palestine, you're a terrorist... on 18:29 - Jul 2 with 249 views
Plus Braverman brought in those disruption orders and other anti-protest legislation (much via statutory instruments rather than through Parliament) which have lead to multi-year prison sentences for doing less than this. Authoritarian creep that Labour don't seem too keen to roll back.
[Post edited 20 Jun 20:53]
I was really hoping that the Labour government would roll back the authoritarian anti-protest legislation from the previous tory governments. That they have not done so, nor even made any noises about doing so, is a disappointment. That they seem to be embracing it gleefully is thoroughly disheartening.
Peter Hain says anti-apartheid campaigners would have been treated as terrorists under logic used to ban Palestine Action
The Labour peer Peter Hain, who was a leading anti-apartheid campaigner in the UK and who led the direct action protests that disrupted South African rugby and cricket tours in 1969 and 1970, told peers that he was “deeply ashamed” that his party was banning Palestine Action.
If he was doing that today, he would be “stigmatised as a terrorist, rather than vilified, as indeed I then was”, he said. He went on:
"That militant action could have been blocked by this motion [the order banning Palestine Action] as could other anti-apartheid activity, including militant protests to stop Barclays Bank recruiting new students on university campuses, eventually forcing Barclays to withdraw from apartheid South Africa.
Remember also that Nelson Mandela was labelled a “terrorist” by the apartheid government, by British prime minister Maragret Thatcher, by the United States and other Western governments during much of the Cold War.
Mandela even remained on the US terrorism watchlist until 2008, many years after becoming South Africa’s first democratically elected president and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
After his African National Congress had been banned, Nelson Mandela was convicted for sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the apartheid government when he backed armed struggle despite strongly opposing the very essence of terrorism: namely violent and indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians.
Nevertheless, he became a global icon and in 1996 President Mandela addressed both Houses of this Parliament in Westminster Hall."
Hain said the suffragettes would have been banned under the same logic,
"The suffragettes too have gained iconic status, treated as heroines today. Yet they could have been suppressed under this proscription. They used violence against property in a strategic manner to demand voting rights for women as part of civil disobedience protests when their peaceful protests seemed futile.
They intended to highlight the injustice of denying women the vote and to provoke a reaction that kept the issue in the public eye. Like Nelson Mandela, they were vilified at the time, including in strident denunciations by members of this house …
They even hid small homemade bombs inside mailboxes and attempted to bomb Westminster Abbey and Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s uncompleted house.
Frankly Palestine Action members spraying paint on military aircraft at Brize Norton seems positively moderate by comparison. And those alleged to have done this are being prosecuted for criminal damage – as indeed they should be."
Hain said that “real terrorists” were groups like al-Qaida and Islamic State, who have killed thousands of people.
He ended:
"This government is treating Palestine Action as equivalent to Islamic State or al-Qaida, which is intellectually bankrupt, politically unprincipled and morally wrong. Frankly I am deeply ashamed. And that is why I support this regret amendment."
If you support Palestine, you're a terrorist... on 19:22 - Jul 3 by DJR
Peter Hain says anti-apartheid campaigners would have been treated as terrorists under logic used to ban Palestine Action
The Labour peer Peter Hain, who was a leading anti-apartheid campaigner in the UK and who led the direct action protests that disrupted South African rugby and cricket tours in 1969 and 1970, told peers that he was “deeply ashamed” that his party was banning Palestine Action.
If he was doing that today, he would be “stigmatised as a terrorist, rather than vilified, as indeed I then was”, he said. He went on:
"That militant action could have been blocked by this motion [the order banning Palestine Action] as could other anti-apartheid activity, including militant protests to stop Barclays Bank recruiting new students on university campuses, eventually forcing Barclays to withdraw from apartheid South Africa.
Remember also that Nelson Mandela was labelled a “terrorist” by the apartheid government, by British prime minister Maragret Thatcher, by the United States and other Western governments during much of the Cold War.
Mandela even remained on the US terrorism watchlist until 2008, many years after becoming South Africa’s first democratically elected president and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
After his African National Congress had been banned, Nelson Mandela was convicted for sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the apartheid government when he backed armed struggle despite strongly opposing the very essence of terrorism: namely violent and indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians.
Nevertheless, he became a global icon and in 1996 President Mandela addressed both Houses of this Parliament in Westminster Hall."
Hain said the suffragettes would have been banned under the same logic,
"The suffragettes too have gained iconic status, treated as heroines today. Yet they could have been suppressed under this proscription. They used violence against property in a strategic manner to demand voting rights for women as part of civil disobedience protests when their peaceful protests seemed futile.
They intended to highlight the injustice of denying women the vote and to provoke a reaction that kept the issue in the public eye. Like Nelson Mandela, they were vilified at the time, including in strident denunciations by members of this house …
They even hid small homemade bombs inside mailboxes and attempted to bomb Westminster Abbey and Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s uncompleted house.
Frankly Palestine Action members spraying paint on military aircraft at Brize Norton seems positively moderate by comparison. And those alleged to have done this are being prosecuted for criminal damage – as indeed they should be."
Hain said that “real terrorists” were groups like al-Qaida and Islamic State, who have killed thousands of people.
He ended:
"This government is treating Palestine Action as equivalent to Islamic State or al-Qaida, which is intellectually bankrupt, politically unprincipled and morally wrong. Frankly I am deeply ashamed. And that is why I support this regret amendment."
[Post edited 3 Jul 19:25]
They had a big celebration for the WSPU in parliament the day after they banned PA.
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