The Terrorism Acts about manifesto

[Floppy]

Agreed that terrorism acts need some reform, and give powers that seem too wide. Anyone expert enough to attempt some changes, or could point us at a group campaigning for change?

[digitalWestie]

Oh and remember this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7688560.stm ?

Anyway these Article19 folk might be worth talking to http://www.article19.org/pages/en/what-we-do.html

[philipjohn]

I've thought about this a few The Green Party seem to have a sensible policy on this, I think, stating that it should not be illegal to be a member of an organisation, even if it's deemed to be a "terrorist".

Ms Bennett said people should not be punished "for what they think or what they believe".

[digitalWestie]

Yeah, I think it raises a good point ie the distinction between being a member of an organisation vs actively financing, or facilitating crime in some way. It's highly likely they'd overlap but not necessarily.

[yellowgopher]

I agree. However we need to consider whether being a member does give an organisation some currency (both figuratively and, maybe, physically!). A belief (there's that word again) and a symbol are not necessarily dangerous (he says, slightly uncomfortably) but what we do with them can be!

[digitalWestie]

Yup, to be clear if you're funding acts of aggression that's a crime. I also see that incitement to crime or threats / abuse / harassment as crimes.

However, I resist the notion that a statement or symbol is criminal per se, even if it's completely awful.

For example, I don't think someone should come after you if you make a statement like "they were right to bomb X" (where X can be Hiroshima, WTC, Gaza, Vietnam, Falklands, Brighton Hotel...etc).

The point is I don't believe in an arbitrary list of what is right and what is wrong. Hence more than anything my beef is more with the ease with which govt. can decide an organisation is 'terrorist'.