No need to speculate that the UK government "might" one day become the bad guys: they already arrest over 30 people a day for speech that offends the prevailing political orthodoxy.
Many (perhaps even most) countries ban public acts of support for what they consider to be terrorist organisations.
For example, the USA maintains a list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and penalities for providing support to those organisations are rather more severe than the in the UK.
Whether or not Palestine Action should be proscribed is a different matter - their most serious action to date has been simply damaging military aircraft. Personally, I'd tend to say that proscription is too harsh a response for property damage with no violence against a person.
I guess in the US that anyone doing something similar would simply have been killed, rather than their organisation being banned. That's not exactly great either!
> Whether or not Palestine Action should be proscribed is a different matter
No, that's actually the heart of the matter.
Palestine Action is not a terrorist organization. Full stop. This isn't even arguable.
Labeling them a terrorist organization and then arresting anyone who expresses support for them is a massive abuse of terrorism laws and an attack on the very heart of freedom of speech.
A terrorist organisation is whatever your government says is a terrorist organisation. Always has been always will be - there's no objective measure.
failbuffer · · focus · HN ↗
[1] <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-are-being-thrown-in-uk-prisons-over-what-theyve-said-online-can-free-speech-be-saved/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2025/09/09/people-a...
cjrp · · focus · HN ↗
DiogenesKynikos · · focus · HN ↗
They're dragging grannies off to prison just for holding up signs, and literally accusing them of supporting terrorism.
4ndrewl · · focus · HN ↗
NetMageSCW · · focus · HN ↗
roryirvine · · focus · HN ↗
For example, the USA maintains a list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and penalities for providing support to those organisations are rather more severe than the in the UK.
Whether or not Palestine Action should be proscribed is a different matter - their most serious action to date has been simply damaging military aircraft. Personally, I'd tend to say that proscription is too harsh a response for property damage with no violence against a person.
I guess in the US that anyone doing something similar would simply have been killed, rather than their organisation being banned. That's not exactly great either!
DiogenesKynikos · · focus · HN ↗
No, that's actually the heart of the matter.
Palestine Action is not a terrorist organization. Full stop. This isn't even arguable.
Labeling them a terrorist organization and then arresting anyone who expresses support for them is a massive abuse of terrorism laws and an attack on the very heart of freedom of speech.
4ndrewl · · focus · HN ↗
DiogenesKynikos · · focus · HN ↗
They called PA a terrorist organization, which is an insult to everyone's intelligence.
Then they carried out mass arrests of people protesting that decision.
Democracies don't do that.