The Reverend Sue Parfitt, from Bristol, was detained for holding a placard that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” She was among more than 27 people arrested on Saturday for acts of defiance against the proscription.
They’re calling these people terrorists for holding signs calling for the end of Israel’s genocide. They’re not calling the people who have been committing genocide every day terrorists: they’re valuable allies. This is the UK Government’s morality. I hope it’s not shared by the British people.
Technically it’s because some members of the group trespassed in a military base and vandalised an airplane. Which is trespassing and vandalism. Not terrorism. Unless Starmer has been watching too much Thomas & the Friends and Pixar’s Cars and believes that the poor planes can’t sleep at night anymore, because they are terrified.
“We’re civilised people, we can excuse genocide, but throwing paint and saying mean words is a step too far.”
Polling consistently shows disapproval for Israeli actions in Gaza.
It is not
No they’re not. There’s a difference between “Palestine Action” (the group) and “actions and other stuff in favour of Palestine”. The former has been banned, the latter has not. Protesting is legal in the UK; vandalising Air Force equipment is not.
Damaging equipment that is being used to conduct genocide is not vandalism, it’s human fucking decency.
True, but I wasn’t aware that the RAF are currently flying sorties into any ongoing genocide.
how dare you bring logic to a circlejerk
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceqg440v0gxo
They are not doing the bombing in Gaza. They are protecting the ones doing the bombing in Gaza.
You might want to re-read that article. It doesn’t mention Gaza once. Here are some quotes:
“fighting between Israel and Iran”
“protect UK personnel and bases in the Middle East”
“we’ve never been involved in attacking with Israel”
“we’ve got assets out there they need to be protected given Iran has suggested they might be under threat”Oh I’m sorry, I thought the recent moves deepening the existing framework was proof enough. You want to go back instead.
Let’s try this one: https://aje.io/78f3r5
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Yes, that is vandalism by definition.
“Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.[1] The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner.”
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That’s sounds like vandalism, which confirms what the other guy said.
And there’s no need for insults.
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Please tell me where you park your car and your number plate. I will then throw red paint on it. If a bit of paint can damage your car, why did you spend 40.000€ on it?
Just listen to yourself - of course throwing paint into an aircraft engine will damage a plane. This is exactly why this group did it. And there is nothing to prevent this - throwing paint will destroy every engine and esp. jet engines. If you do not believe me, throw a bucket of paint into your car engine. You can support Palestine, but please use your brain and try to think about some things before posting. You can do better than this.
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That’s the definition of vandalism. Feel free to open a dictionary and educate yourself.
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What has point of sale to do with genocide?
Feckless cowards.
Just wondering, if I would hold up a sign with ‘go isreal, continue the amazing work you do!’, would that get me arrested? Surely i’d get beat up but i mean what would the lawmakers think of that? Would it be different if the sign would say ‘go isreal, murder those innocent families’ or ‘go isreal, your genocide rules!’ (am i allowed to call it a genocide if i’m not against it?)
What really happened here: Members of this Palestine Action group sneaked onto a military base and attacked the aircrafts there. This act of politically motivated vandalism resulted in this group being officially banned by the government. Which is totally ok, no state in the world will and can tolerate some group doing acts of terrorism and/or doing sabotage.
Supporting banned terrorist organizations is of course also not allowed (which really makes sense) and yeah, this priest totally did that on purpose. You are therefore totally fine holding up a sign supporting Israel and you are also totally fine holding up a sign supporting Palestine, but you are not fine holding up signs supporting banned organizations.
Nah, Labeling them as “terrorists” is disproportionate.
Criminals, yes. Terrorists, no.
The definition of terrorism under british law can apply to basically any protest group and if applied retroactively would drag things like the suffragette movement under the umbrella of terrorism.
This move is an assault on all of our freedom of speech
You’re equating vandalism to terrorism, you might want to look up the meaning of those words.
The British House of Commons voted by 385 votes to 26 to add Palestine Action to the list of terrorist groups proscribed under the Terrorism Act. Maybe you want to tell us why your definition of terrorism is different from the one in the British parliament?
That vote just shows us the British House of Commons is full of racists. Nothing new there.
Because they are unfairly biased in favor of Israel. The U.S. has shown its bias by denying the war crimes that every serious scholar has agreed is happening. The state of Israel itself has tried to shoehorn “criticism of the state of Israel” into the definition of antisemitism.
Governments will stretch and distort definitions to suit their purposes.
Because i’m not a hypocrite, unlike the british parliament.
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Bootlicker
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What really happened is already in the article, my questions are about how lawmakers would respond if you openly support the same side they are supporting. That is especially relevant as r i don’t expect regular folk to let me walk around showing the same kind of support for genocide. This has nothing to do with the Palestine Action group and what they did or didn’t do.
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How did this get 5 upvotes lol
I think more people have alts on lemmy than we’d like to admit. Particularly when they’re accounts spewing hasbara propaganda.
There is only one context in which Palestine Action is “a terrorist organization such as Hamas” and that’s the depraved legislation that the idiots in Westminster passed. The bravery of the 83 year old priest this article is about lays bare the depravity and stupidity of this absolutely idiotic legislation. Your comment on the other hand, by using this idiotic comparison buys into this aberrant degeneracy. Why do you do that?
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As someone stated… The police are not your friend. They are not there to serve and protect your interests. They are there to serve and protect the interests of the state you live in.
The other day my wife’s car stopped at a busy road. The police quickly arrived and asked if she had crashed on to my car. Like how can we take this unfortunate event and turn it into a profitable situation where they can impound the car…oh it’s just engine failure, well you’re blocking the road so I’ll call the most expensive possible tow truck. How can we make your day worse?
It’s so sad that it comes to this in some area’s of the world.
Now I understand more closely Starmer’s subservience to America’s Donald Trump.
Uh, I’ve had enuff of shitty news; let’s switch to another timeline.
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Maybe change Germany to the country the post is related to after copy and pasting this, it’s not they’re the only one.
Why is the UK against people backing Mandatory Palestine?
Mandatory Palestine
the UK is against backing “Palestine Action” which is a group that has sabotaged British military equipment. Surprisingly, the British government doesn’t take kindly to that sort of thing.
- worldAdminsGenociders ( worldAdminsGenociders@lemmings.world ) BannedBanned from communityEnglish2·1 year ago
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Charming.
There is such a thing as context. Red paint on a street is an annoyance (and may make for very visible and effective protest). Red paint on hi-tech equipment is sabotage (and makes for very unpleasant reactions by the owners of said equipment).
It’s sabotage. It’s not terrorism. The gov is wrong to proscribe this group, you must see that? Regardless of your stance on the issue, this is an anti democratic move by Labour.
I do think that arresting people for voicing their support is counter-productive, unnecessarily heavy-handed and at the very least controversial from a freedom-of-speech point of view.
But I don’t see how the government should not ban a group that resorts to sabotage to achieve their political goals? Any state – democratically legitimized or no – will be very twitchy about stuff that touches national security.
Am I missing some nuance here?
The nuance here is that they’ve been proscribed as a terrorist group. They are a direct action group but they don’t hurt people, just damage property. That’s a crime, but it’s not terrorism. They can and should be tried for criminal damage, B&E, damage to government property etc, but this is a freedom of protest issue, and now freedom of speech, too, since I can no longer say things like “I think Palestine Action went too far, but they’re fighting for a just cause”, for example, because I’d be expressing support for a terrorist group and therefore committing a crime.
Compare to e.g. the suffragette movement who bombed buildings and all kinds to get the vote for women: they’re now lauded by the same person who proscribed this group. Or more recent examples like just stop oil or the protesters that threw the Edward Colson statue into the River Avon. They were tried for criminal damages. Then recently, some protesters have been starting to get tried under the far, far harsher anti terrorism laws, usually when it involves protesting Israel’s war crimes. These are the laws that allow things like extended detention in solitary without charge or phone calls, massively longer sentences and all manner of nasty punishments. It’s clearly a power grab to reduce the will to protest.oh. yeah damaging property is kinda missing the “terror” in “terrorism”. I get it. Thank you :)
Sabotage can absolutely be terrorism. In this case probably not, but the British government has a valid reason to oppose this specific group.
I didn’t mean to say say sabotage could not be terrorism in general, I’m agreeing that this is absolutely sabotage, but in this case it is not terrorism. The govt do not have a valid reason to proscribe them as a terrorist organisation. There are other available methods of opposition.
Terrorism is generally linked with a risk to personal safety at the very least, not mere property damage. These people are criminals, not terrorists.I can agree with that.
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I dont know exactly but they are quite fond of bringing the iran monarchy back. Maybe something something oil
Because they helped set israel up and have to be allied with them.
The joke is that Mandatory Palestine was the name of the British colony before they gave the land to Israel
Oh, thank you for explaining!
Well that was quick.
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