<nettime> STATE OF TERROR

[ir-heath@mail.netnames.net]

STATE OF TERROR

 Are you digging a tunnel to prevent a road from being built through your
 neighbourhood? Have you pulled up a few Genetically modified crops from
 your local test site? Maybe you spoke at a meeting where a member of the
 Animal Liberation Front, for example, also spoke? Well I'm afraid to tell
 you that you are soon to be deemed a TERRORIST!

 The government are starting to realise that protests are not going away,
 that people are getting more advanced and organised by using such new
 technology as telephones and the internet! To combat the outrageous
 behaviour of people meeting up in public spaces and discussing issues, the
 government have introduced the glorious, updated, newly improved….
 Terrorism Bill!!

 Terrorism, in it's hot off the press state, is now "the use of serious
 violence against persons or property, or the threat to use such violence to
 intimidate or coerce the Government, the public or any section of the
 public for political, religious or ideological ends."

 This new Bill, which is being fast-tracked through parliament, is targeting
 environmental groups, animal rights protestors and anyone who shows a
 social or moral conscience.

 If you intended to destroy GM crops coz they are contaminating your local
 organic farm, you will have less rights than a person who was involved in
 deliberate assault and robbery. Basically, you will be classed the same
 legally as the Soho nail bomber!

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

 FIT THE BILL?

 At present, the only organisations listed are those associated with
 Northern Ireland. But the Bill gives the police or government the power to
 add to this list. Reclaim The Streets, Earth First!, Animal Liberation
 Front have all hit the headlines recently as leading persistent and
 destructive campaigns against property . By demonising a group,
 organisation, or sector of a community, you can legitimise a treatment of
 them that is seen as 'fair punishment' by the general public. This is
 exactly what happened with Northern Ireland, the coal miners, the anti-poll
 tax demonstrators, etc.

 Under Clause 3 of the new legislation, it will become an offence just to be
 connected with the new definition of 'terrorists'. If direct action
 organisations are being targeted as potential terrorists, then it is only a
 short step to 'proscription'. Once an organisation has been proscribed
 'terrorist', it will become a criminal offence to belong to that
 organisation, to openly support it, or to speak out at a meeting where
 members of that organisation were also speaking. The Bill is
 scare-mongering people against joining organisations, regardless of whether
 or not they personally take part in criminal activity.

 In fact, you won't even have to be directly involved with the organisation.
 The Incitement clauses of the Bill (clauses 57-59) would make it an offence
 to support by words alone an armed struggle in a country outside the UK.
 Those supporting such struggles as the Zapatistas in Mexico, or the Tamil
 Tigers of Sri Lanka, will be under investigation.

 Under the same clauses, there is a danger that refugees who have fled from
 repressive regimes to this country will become a legitimate target of the
 police merely because they support the overthrow of that regime.

 CLAUSE 38/39 states that the police will be able to arrest, without a
 warrant, anyone they reasonably suspect as being a 'terrorist'. You won't
 have to actually have done anything.The powers of stop and search will be
 extended to include strip searches without a warrant, and failure to comply
 will result in a three month sentence.

 As well as this, new rights are being given to the armed forces regarding
 searching premises if there is reasonable suspicion of the property
 containing munitions and 'wireless transmitter or scanner'. Does this mean
 that we could be listening to Pirate Radio Terrorism FM? Or that John Peel
 and Jimmy Saville were terrorists in their early career? The wording of the
 Bill is ambiguous and open to misuse thru' misinterpretation.

 Clause 18 states that it will be an offence not to report any knowledge of
 'terrorist activity'. This has far-reaching implications for investigative
 journalists who could face up to five years in jail for not grassing people
 up.

 The Bill is going through its Parliamentary stages at an alarming rate, and
 looks set to become law this autumn.It will replace both the Prevention of
 Terrorism Act, 1974, and the Northern Ireland Act, 1973. These two Acts
 have led to some of the worst human rights abuses in this country over the
 last 25 years, contributed to miscarriages of justice and have led to the
 unnecessary detention of thousands of innocent people, mainly Irish. This
 new Bill blatantly ignores the European Convention of Human Rights.

 The original Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act was rushed
 through Parliament in 1977 in record time - first presented to Parliament
 on a Wednesday it was law by Friday morning. Not a single Labour MP voted
 against it.

 Despite what the government said at the time, the PTA wasn't meant to
 convict people or prevent bombings - it was introduced to prevent the Irish
 community in Britain from expressing support for a united Ireland. Less
 that 7% of the more than 5,000, mainly Irish, people arrested under the PTA
 in Britain in its first seven years were charged with any offence, although
 many were detained for days.

 The PTA has been widely used to expel innocent Irish people from Britain
 and prevent Irish republicans from speaking in Britain - In 1982 Sinn
 Fein's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness were both banned from entering
 Britain to speak. The Act has also been used to remove prominent opposition
 figures during 'difficult' times for the government - the week before the
 death of hunger striker Bobby Sands, 30 leading republicans were arrested
 under the PTA, subject to 'extended detentions', then released without
 charge.

 If you think SchNEWS is getting its knickers in a twist for nothing then
 here's an example of the PTA working in Ireland.

 Bernard O'Connor, a teacher from Eniskillen, was arrested under the PTA in
 1977. His first interrogation session in Belfast lasted for over three
 hours. He was forced to stand on his toes, bend his knees and hold his
 hands out in front of him and was hit in the face when his heels touched
 the ground or he lost balance. Every time he denied taking part in bombings
 and shootings he was hit again. That afternoon, three detectives tried to
 get him to admit lesser charges to avoid 35 years in jail. Then at night
 the brutality really started. He was stripped naked, beaten up and forced
 to do press ups continually. His underpants were placed over his head and
 he was threatened with being choked, then threatened with being handed over
 to the death squads of the Ulster Volunteer Force. These interrogations
 continued until he was released without charge on Monday night.

 Want to know more??? * Liberty, 21 Tabard Street, London, SE1 4LA. Tel;0171
 403 1904,
 * Discussion list ralph@blagged.freeserve.co.uk or
 www.blagged.freeserve.co.uk/law.htm

 * Brighton Against Benefit Cuts January 11th, upstairs at The George Beard
 Pub, 7:30pm, Gloucester Road, Brighton, to plan for a large gathering on
 Sat, 11th March.

 * Manchester EF! Mon 24th January, 7:30pm, One World Centre, Manchester.
 Michelle 0161 442 8635 or Chris 01942 513 792

 * Cultures of Persistance Squat, ( see In Brief) 13th January, 7:30pm, to
 discuss a strategy to mobilise against the Bill.

--

With the defeat of the Soviet Union came the
shutting down of the cultural buffer zone
between left and right and hence the
assimilation of the undefined into existing
institutions of capital fundamentalism.
Artists and cultural workers are being forced
to choose between a path in the capital defined
categories of commodification, crime or
terrorism.

CTA is determined to support individuals and
organisations that, if are not already
will soon be, branded as terrorists.

http://www.irational.org/cta/


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