[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]New laws to limit and surveil speech on and offline are not the way to tackle extremism. The terrorists who attacked Manchester and London want to undermine our democratic values — our response must not be to curtail those very freedoms.
Yet this is precisely what the heated rhetoric of UK Prime Minister Theresa May and others promises.
Like governments the world over, the UK has suggested that tighter controls over the internet specifically and speech more generally are the way to help prevent such attacks. “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed – yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services provide,” May said on Sunday in the wake of the London Bridge attack.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_icon icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-times-circle” color=”black” background_style=”rounded” size=”lg” align=”right”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text]
We must be extremely wary of the broad brush approaches being hinted at by the government to crack down on extremism on the internet
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Much focus has fallen on the role of the internet as a venue for recruiting violent extremists, fomenter of propaganda and dark space where terrorists can plan their attacks in secret. It is unsurprising, therefore, in the wake of the recent terror attacks that the UK government has sought to find solutions it believes will make us safer by targeting the internet in particular: politicians thrive on the idea that they should and must do more, that the answers to indiscriminate and horrendous violence lie in new laws, that fresh legislation is always the panacea.
We must be extremely wary of the broad brush approaches being hinted at by the government to crack down on extremism on the internet and we must push back hard against the narrative that says what is needed are more laws — laws that specifically strike at the liberties that are essential for democracy to flourish. Britain already has one of the most advanced systems to detect, prevent and punish terrorism in the world. There is no need for new, indiscriminate laws to punish and surveil speech.
The online “safe spaces” for terrorists to which Theresa May alluded in her speech on Sunday are also the spaces globally that allow activism, information sharing and ordinary political dissent to flourish. Proposed knee-jerk responses — like banning or bypassing encryption — threaten not just the channels used by criminals but those that allow us to conduct secure financial transactions, protect personal data and enable persecuted groups in authoritarian regimes to communicate safely.
If we want to tackle the ideologies that threaten our existence we need to start by protecting democratic values – not diminishing them.
About Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is a UK-based freedom of expression charity that campaigns against censorship and promotes free expression worldwide. Founded in 1972, Index has published some of the world’s leading writers and artists in its award-winning quarterly magazine, including Nadine Gordimer, Mario Vargas Llosa, Samuel Beckett and Kurt Vonnegut. It also has published some of the greatest campaigning writers from Vaclav Havel to Elif Shafak. Index is part of the Defend Free Speech Campaign, which brings together people from all walks of life, to combat the threat to free speech from the UK government’s extremism disruption orders. Defend Free Speech seeks guarantees for freedom of expression and the right to debate.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_basic_grid post_type=”post” max_items=”12″ style=”load-more” items_per_page=”4″ element_width=”6″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1496671071463-fc51cf93-e4eb-3″ taxonomies=”11489″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Index on Censorship is part of the Defend Free Speech campaign against the introduction of new freedom of speech laws. The following is a letter by Defend Free Speech’s campaign director Simon Calvert.
It was with considerable alarm that we watched the recent evidence session of counter-extremism minister, Karen Bradley, before Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.
In a little over an hour, Mrs Bradley put forward no fewer than ten possible definitions of ‘extremism’, including: “The public promotion of an ideology that can lead to greater harms”; and “publicly promoting an ideology where the activity they are undertaking is not criminal and does not go beyond reasonable doubt but we know that that activity leads to a hate crime, a terrorist activity, or maybe FGM”.
We wrote to the minister to set out our fears. Here’s what we said:
The Defend Free Speech campaign, and many of the groups associated with it, are greatly concerned that the proposed ‘civil orders regime’ will damage both security and civil liberties. They risk distracting the authorities away from terrorism and violence and into monitoring and punishing legitimate expressions of opinion.
Finding terrorists and their enablers is like finding a needle in a haystack. Forcing the police and security services to operate at the much lower threshold of ‘non-violent extremism’ will massively increase the range of people and ideas under investigation, thereby making the haystack considerably bigger. Placing millions more people under suspicion is more likely to mask the activities of terrorists than to highlight them.
Your difficulty in articulating a clear, consistent definition of the kind of activity the Government aims to punish via civil orders was very concerning. The Home Office has been working on the issue for well over a year and yet the impression was given that the Government still has no clear idea how to legislate for what it wants to achieve.
Harriet Harman summed up the situation accurately when she told the committee:
Still we don’t know what civil orders are being talked about, we don’t know what the sanctions are likely to be, we don’t know what the definitions are, we have no specificity about the timetable in terms of when the consultation will start, how long it will be. We know there won’t be a draft Bill, but we really are none the wiser about anything else’.
We were grateful that you confirmed that there would be a public consultation. But for the consultation to have any value, and for stakeholders to have a meaningful opportunity to influence the outcome, it must include precise statutory definitions that can then be subjected to scrutiny.
As members of the Committee pointed out, a consultation will be worthless if it does not give the actual wording with which the Government intends to resolve the tension between security and liberty. As it is, the planned consultation looks more a fishing expedition, carried out in the hope that somebody somewhere has a good idea of how this legislation could be drafted.
We concluded by requesting an urgent meeting with the minister, and reassurances of a further consultation when the Home Office can tell the public how it actually plans to legislate in this incredibly sensitive and important area.
As we said quite clearly to the minister, when the matters at stake include terrorism and the fundamental civil liberties of millions, the Home Office cannot simply shrug its shoulders and say ‘we’re not sure what we’re doing’.
The groups backing Defend Free speech wrote to the Home Office back in January requesting a consultation on Extremism Disruption Orders. Having failed to respond for five months, the Government finally conceded the need for such a consultation in the Queen’s Speech in May.
Thank you for standing with us to Defend Free Speech.
Best wishes,
Simon Calvert
Campaign Director Defend Free Speech
In response to the attacks on Tolo TV on 20 January, in which eight people have been killed and 30 others injured, we stand in solidarity with the Afghan media community. We condemn this and all other attacks on Afghanistan’s journalists unreservedly and applaud their courage to stand together undeterred by those who seek to silence them. We want to tell our colleagues throughout Afghanistan they are not alone; the international community is behind them. The journalists and media workers of Afghanistan are playing a leading role in working fearlessly to ensure that the voices of violent extremists do not dominate the news agenda. We remain ready to help them in this perilous endeavour.
Signed by (and including links to additional statements on the Tolo attack from these organizations),
Article 19, UK
Committee to Protect Journalists, USA
Free Press Unlimited, Netherlands
Index on Censorship, UK
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), Canada
International News Safety Institute UK
International Media Support, Denmark
International Press Institute, Austria
World Association of Newspapers, France
Open Society Foundations, Program on Independent Journalism, UK
Reporters Without Borders, France
Rory Peck Trust, UK
Police move on the English Defense League members in Exeter City Centre. Credit: Clive Chilvers / Shutterstock.com
There are a few techniques you can use to spot whether someone has slightly dodgy views on the world.
My favourite is the hand-chopping test. Imagine, if you will, that you find yourself debating on a panel with a media-friendly community activist. He was very jovial in the dressing room, knows all the right words about the European Convention on Human Rights and a little bit about the emancipation of women. All the nice things. But something seems a bit shady. You’ve heard he’s associated with some rather dubious types. Try this: ask if they think thieves should have their hands cut off. If they say: “What an odd question. Of course not!”, they’re probably fairly normal people, but they won’t be your friend because they reckon you’re probably Islamophobic. But if they start waffling about the “Sharia being properly implemented… in an Islamic State the Sharia would necessarily… something something scholars…” etc, you are in all likelihood sharing a stage with someone who’s a bit, well…
Well what, exactly? Dodgy, yes. The test has served to establish that much. But does it mean they’re probably going to join the Islamic State immediately after you’ve finished your panel debate? Or encourage others to do so?
Probably not. We don’t really know.
Take another example. You’re at a bus stop late at night when you overhear a middle-aged man next to you railing against refugees to a young woman. Is he simply an anti-immigrant little-Englander? What if he starts explaining that the current refugee crisis has been caused not by Assad or IS, or oppressive governments in say, Eritrea, but by the machinations of “Rothschild Zionists” who are determined to flood Europe with dark-skinned people in order to pollute the continent’s Aryan bloodstock?
The UK government would class the beliefs outlined above as “extreme”. Indeed, in its newly-outlined counter-extremism strategy, it focuses almost exclusively on Islamism and neo-Nazism, which might come as a relief to anarchists, deep greens, animal rights activists and physical-force Irish republicans.
I’m not about to debate the merits of the term “extremism” itself. Yes, “extreme” is by its nature a relative term, and things change over time: the Prussian secret police who spied on Karl Marx in London as he wrote Das Kapital surely would have identified him as an extremist, but could not have possibly imagined his ideas would become so very prominent in the corridors of mainstream academia a century later.
The ideas of extreme Islamists and the far right, it is probably reasonable to say, are far from the mainstream of British society. And violence is carried out in their name. These seem reasonable assertions.
The question then is whether the government should do something about their existence. And if so, what?
The new counter-extremism strategy does at least attempt to identify specifics of what extremism might be and also shows some actual knowledge of the identified problems as specific political projects rather than floating notions.
But it’s still not entirely clear whether the ultimate aim is to prevent acts of terrorism carried out by extremists or to prevent general wrongs.
It is of interest, for example, to note that violence against women and girls, including genital mutilation, is identified. But I’m not sure that the “root causes” can be linked simply to the forms of extremism mentioned in the strategy document.
There are other issues that will also raise concern for those interested in free expression.
In an age when stories about who can and cannot speak on university campuses have become a staple of discussion, the government’s assertion that it expects “student bodies such as the NUS to avoid providing a platform for extremist speakers” feels like yet another incursion onto the idea that universities should be free spaces.
The suggestion that “the government will challenge broadcasters whenever extremists have been given a platform to preach harmful messages without critical challenge” appears to be moving beyond the existing role of Ofcom in promoting balance on the airwaves.
This is underlined by the pledge to “legislate in this parliament to ensure Ofcom’s existing powers to immediately suspend TV services that broadcast unacceptable extremist material also extend to all radio services” and to “consider changes” to regulation around shows that appear on the web.
We ultimately return to the challenge of our jovial preacher on the panel debate or our bus-stop Streicher.
As individuals and as a society, what do we want to do with them? Convince them that they are wrong and that liberal democracy is the way to go? The government suggests it will “act with confidence, unapologetically defending our shared values and robustly confronting extremists”.
This is important, certainly, and is something that must be put into practice in places such as prisons where the path to radicalisation and possible violence is at its clearest.
But it’s crucial that is seen as an act rather than an idea: the crime is to plant the bomb or recruit, fundraise for violence in the name of the Islamic State, or attempt to foment race war longed for by Nazis. The crime cannot be simply to believe in the Islamic State or the race war. We come back (as we so frequently do) to John Stuart Mill’s harm principle: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”
