Much of the comment on the law banning the glorification of terrorism makes two points in common. First, as expressed by a leader in the Daily Telegraph, that...
The existing laws on incitement to murder, to violence, and to racial and other forms of hatred provide all the scope needed to prevent extremists from encouraging others to support violent attacks.Second, that the legislation is 'a way of taking a public stand' or of 'striking a pose'. But in order to take a stand, you just take a stand; you don't need new law, especially when the new law isn't needed. Worse still, it seems from the same press comment that what was wrong with this legislation when I posted about it in October is still wrong with it: its terms potentially criminalize not just the glorification of terrorism, but also support for armed resistance against tyranny - which need not involve terrorism in its proper sense, that is, deliberate attacks on civilians. As the Times asks:
If the terror Bill had been on the statute book ten years ago, would those who encouraged Iraqi dissidents to overthrow Saddam Hussein have been guilty of glorifying terrorism? It is never sensible to pass laws whose effectiveness requires promises that they will be interpreted with common sense.The same question and observation would apply to a movement, today, to overthrow Robert Mugabe's regime by force. The legislation recalls Dr Seuss's Zizzer-Zoof Seeds ('which nobody wants because nobody needs'). It is not a defence of the freedoms of people in this country, and depending on how it is interpreted, it could be used as an attack on them.
