How the UK government rebranded protest as extremism
JVL Introduction
The University and College Union (UCU) branch at Queen Mary University in east London had its offices raided by the management to remove posters, one with a Palestinian flag, another saying: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
It occurs in an atmosphere where legitimate political protest is increasingly smeared as extremism.
Ruzina Akhtar, daughter of the Makram Ali, murdered in an Islamophobic-fuelled attack in 2017, says of so many politicians today: “Instead of inciting hatred, they need to be working together with communities. On the one hand, they’ll talk about how Britain is multicultural and so inclusive, but then they’re putting targets on people’s backs.”
Instead Rishi Sunak has just doubled down in his support for the Prevent programme condemned by human rights organisations.
The demonisation of protesters has laid the foundation for violence against peaceful climate activists, pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Muslims in general.
We need to redouble our opposition to it.
RK
This article was originally published by openDemocracy on Mon 11 Mar 2024. Read the original here.
How the UK government rebranded protest as extremism
Daughter of terror attack victim Makram Ali says politicians are ‘fuelling fire’ by equating Muslims with extremism
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A sidebar to this article is the defection of Lee Anderson to Reform, and his repeated refrain ‘We want our country back’, as both explanation and reason, followed by the comments of the Tory Party’s largest donor (£10 million this year), Frank Hester, saying that looking at Diane Abbott made you ‘want to hate all black women’ and that he’d like to see her shot ….. extremism on the Right is accelerating quite openly and Starmer’s refusal to confront this (and even occupy the vacated ground) exacerbates the political shift
Is it silly to suggest taking legal action against the police and politicians for taking a Zionist approach to legitimate actions of the King’s subjects going about their lawful business?
This Government wants to stop Striking, Protesting and Marching by way of Campaigning or Protesting.
It isn’t to strong in calling them Fascists.
Saying those that are Protesting are carrying out “Hate Marches” would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
It’s fairly recently That they’ve started making up these silly titles to make Campaigners sound like the enemy, sadly, many people read their Newspaper and believe that Campaigners/Protesters are people to fear, “Terrorists” “Hate Campaigners” etc, so they too condemn them, this makes it easier for the Government to bring in Laws to stop the very people that are fighting to save our Human Rights. We must call out the People that are coming up with these Propaganda Titles.