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pydry 2 days ago

>Certainly, calling the UK "ultra-authoritarian" is incorrect.

It's Russia level. They're prosecuting people for holding up signs protesting a genocide.

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JumpCrisscross 2 days ago | parent [-]

> They're prosecuting people for holding up signs

Source?

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subscribed 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

They also hold people arrested for opposing genocide on remand without trial for months already.

For holding rhe sign.

The famously authoritarian police threatening arrest for an attempt to hold an EMPTY placard.

Or arresting for a shirt with "Plasticine Action".

Or locking in a prison for several years for zoom call in which they planned nonviolent protest (blocking the motorway).

We could do it for months.

	▲	nine_k 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Arresting a person for holding a blank placard would indeed be Russia-level oppression. The person in question was not arrested, but threatened to be arrested if he wrote a particular phrase on it [1]. Not great at all, but still no cigar. A man wearing the "Plasticine Action" T-shirt was indeed arrested [2]. That was extra absurd because the protest was against AI-generated animation, not about a political cause. All in all, quite bad :( [1]: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-arrest-blank-paper... [2]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/palestine-action...

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pydry 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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JumpCrisscross 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yeah, that’s dumb. Curious what they were charged with, e.g. if they were told to disperse and didn’t, and if the charges will stick.

As dumb as it may be, you should be free-in a democracy, with limited exceptions—to verbalize support for a foreign or even domestic terrorist organization as long as you aren’t materially aiding it.

Is “supporting” defined in the UK Terrorist Act?

	▲	pydry 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Spray painting a panzer tank in 1939 with "free the jews" would have been a pretty much identical form of "terrorism". Nobody killed, no real damage done. Obviously the Nazis back then would agree with modern far right that defacing weapons used to commit genocide fits the definition of terrorism and that voicing support for such a crime demands prison time. And, modern liberals have always had an easier relationship with the far right than they have had with free speech.