Comment by reliabilityguy
20 hours ago
> these days anyone who says "I support Palestine Action"
You mean the group that sneaked in and damaged a bunch of UK Military’s planes on a military base? Was this the action that put them into the terrorist category?
Not quite in the same league as IS, Al-Qaeda etc etc. Used to be a organisation had to murder and terrorise an entire population, or fly planes into city centres.
Apparently our standards have dropped so low that spray painting a couple of planes and embarrassing the UK military now puts you on par with those other organisations.
Yes supporting the Islamists puts you in the same league as the Islamists.
"Damaged a bunch of UK Military's planes" == spray painted two planes
Spray painting a jet engine causes millions in damages, but it's a cute sleight of hand to insinuate it's just some graffiti on a wall or something.
You don't actually know how much it cost, you just believe what the police say despite the fact that they've provided no figures.
Yes. They're a bunch of violent criminals. But that's not the point.
There are lots of violent criminals who harm businesses and injure, or even kill people. They should be prosecuted and imprisoned. It's not illegal to say "I support <name of criminal or criminal gang>", even if people strongly disagree with you.
However, by showing they could break into an RAF base and spraypaint the planes - that says to me that the RAF are completely shit at their job, how can they protect their base from Russians if they can't even keep out local criminals - embarrassed the Government, and the government retaliated by making it illegal to say you support them.
Say it out loud? Criminal. Wear a t-shirt? Criminal. Hold a placard? Criminal.
Might as well just hold up blank sheets of paper and wait for the police to arrest you because they know what you want to write on them, like they do in Russia.
To me, that's a free speech issue. What an affront to free speech it is. Saying you support criminal scumbags should not be a crime. You should be able to say you support a bunch of violent yahoos, to whoever will listen to you, and I should be able to laugh at you and call you a simpleton for your idiot beliefs.
I'm not sure they've been shown to be violent (unless you consider damage to property as violence- I know some do, but personally my "things are just things" stance limits violence to actions which impact people, who matter.
Broadly speaking though, I agree. What they did was criminal damage, undoubtedly, I have no problem arresting and prosecuting people for that. But I don't believe that it's terrorism, nor that it would have been so unpopular had it not been bloody embarrassing for the armed forces. Honestly, bolt cutters and some paint should not be grounding some of your air defence.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1dzq41n4l9o
> Giving evidence earlier, he said the group's only intention was to "break in, cause as much damage to the factory as possible, destroy weapons and prevent the factory from reopening".
I count "causing as much damage as possible" to be violent.
While I think graffiti taggers "damage property" but are non-violent. But in many places, rival gangs blow up/set alight/demolish their rivals' homes/businesses/vehicles, etc. That counts as pretty strong violence to me, even if no people are injured.
Anyway, talking of people being injured, watch a member of Palestine Action (Samuel Corner, 23, Oxford University graduate) drive a sledgehammer into a police seargent while she's trying to arrest his comrade:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g54g1r15eo
Full video, sledgehammer attack at 3m05s to 3m10s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6P7p_5D4hw
I'd designate them as a terrorist group for destroying factories, not so much for spraypainting planes. But I'd still support your right to say you support them, even though I'd disagree.
5 replies →
One member did very violently attack a police officer:
> A police sergeant was left unable to drive, shower or dress herself after a Palestine Action activist allegedly hit her with a sledgehammer during a break-in at an Israeli defence firm's UK site, a trial has heard.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g54g1r15eo
Of course, one violent member does not make an organisation into a terrorist organisation. But, just as a matter of fact, there has been some actual violence against a person.
Damaging military equipment is the farthest thing from terrorism. That's literally the one thing that can never be terrorism.
If your standard for designating someone a terrorist is "they did something quite naughty" - go at it.