Vandalising a WW2 memorial with swastikas and the SS symbol (as well as spraying what I can only assume from the context was JEWS OUT over a few nearby premises.) Wow, they really must love our country, musn’t they? You have to wonder what goes through British Nazis’ minds; it must be some form of obtuse doublethink.
And then there was the Nick Griffin/Mark Collett decision. Collett at least deserves prosecution for his part in maintaining the R*dw*tch hitlist (name starred out for obvious Google-related reasons), and this fact – given by both Channel Four’s Young, Nazi and Proud and the BBC Secret Agent programme – has never been capitalised upon despite R*dw*tch being run by an actual bona fide terrorist group and having caused many violent attacks against those listed on it. The fact that he wasn’t even charged over that is somewhat infuriating.
Admittedly, this government has done naff all against the various ALF/ELF/SHAC hitlists, anti-abortion hitlists, Christian Voice’s BBC hitlist and various others – they seem just not to care. Even the US has done more – these sites were ruled illegal by the Planned Parenthood/ACLA decision over the “Nuremberg Files” – so it’s not like the Home Office couldn’t get it shut down if it wanted to. Why it doesn’t, much like why it doesn’t go after the animal rights versions that cost millions to the taxpayer, is beyond me.
Now, I usually take a free speech position; scumbags are there to be refuted and ignored, not jailed. But hitlists are not valid free speech; they are threats against people and property which the site owners obviously intend to be acted on (in the way the Nuremberg Files greyed and scored out dead abortion doctors, for instance.) They contain information which is not meant to be public, sometimes even things like credit card numbers.
It’s basically terrorism – we’ll list you and you could just get a bunch of thugs wanting to stab you on your porch someday, just for saying “Nazis are bad, mmkay?”. At the very least, it’s much more of a terrorist act than some guy who has the “Attempt To Blow Something Up In A Completely Inaccurate Way Handbook” on his hard drive, which this government seems to find no problem prosecuting. There are some things it’s just impossible to get.
I’ll leave you with an obvious question drawn from the Griffin/Collett trial: since when was “we’ll show those ethnics the door” not racist, anyway?
F L I C K E R I N G / F R A M E 