LSESU AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

 Mathilde Betant-Rasmussen

In January of this year, The Guardian uncovered an interesting document circulated by the Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE) Unit to the Home Office, the NHS and the Department of Education. The short guide on extremist ideologies, part of the UK’s Prevent strategy, provided a list of threatening groups, which included Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Greenpeace alongside the far-right and neo-Nazis. This surprising conflation between environmental activism and domestic terrorism received sharp criticism both from the media and inside government, and the guide has since been recalled by the CTPSE who admitted to an error of judgment.

A few months earlier, XR members won a case against the Met police in which the High Court declared the city-wide ban on XR protests unlawful. The judges quoted from a previous protest case stating that ‘free speech is a hollow concept if one is only able to express “approved” or majoritarian views’. Indeed, while these ‘mistakes’ of law enforcement practice have been seemingly redressed, they show a concerning pattern of resorting to exceptional measures to repress the public expression of radical views. In fact, they seem to reflect a certain fear of ‘anti-establishment philosophy that seeks system change’ through the suppression of public protest and mobilization (Dodd & Grierson, 10 Jan).

 

Counterterrorism at the expense of human rights

The fact that XR, a climate action movement relying on the peaceful occupation of public spaces, made it onto the CTPSE list is concerning, but not surprising considering the vagueness of UK legislation on terrorism. The absence of international law on terrorism gives states wide discretion to define what they consider to be a ‘threat to national security’. MI5 defines terrorist groups as ones who use ‘threats of violence to publicise their causes and as a means to achieve their goals. They often aim to influence or exert pressure on governments and government policies but reject democratic processes.’

Similarly, domestic extremism ‘refers to individuals or groups that carry out criminal acts in pursuit of a larger agenda [and] seek to change legislation or influence domestic policy and try to achieve this outside of the normal democratic process.’ While neither of these definitions seem applicable to XR or other environmental groups, the fact that these groups were deemed to fit the bill reflects the uncontested powers of counterterrorism police when it comes to defining terms such as ‘threats of violence’, ‘democratic processes’ and ‘terrorism’.

This ability of law enforcement to interpret legal language and intervene accordingly not only dangerously fuses legislative and executive powers, but also encourages a climate of exception. Indeed, counterterrorism relies on its ability to suspend civil and political rights in the name of national security and the enacting of exceptional measures to deal with national threats. Because the suspension of rights has been justified as ‘exceptional’, human rights have largely been kept outside of the counterterrorism discourse. The problem is that the exceptional has become somewhat permanent, through surveillance strategies such as Prevent that infringe on individual privacy and freedom of expression.

Because surveillance and anti-radicalisation strategies are now inherent features of law enforcement practices, they encourage an ever-widening conception of ‘threat’. Activism, public mobilization and strong ideals have become associated with suspicious behaviour and perceived as dangerous for public order and national security. In that sense, UK counter-terrorism measures have resulted in more authoritarian forms of managing and controlling civil society. Far from exclusively constituting the prevention of terrorist attacks by violent extremist groups, counter-terrorism is slowly becoming synonymous with ‘counter-activism’. As a result, rights and democracy suffer.

 

Surveillance, population management and civil society

The issue with counter-terrorism surveillance and anti-radicalisation consists not only of the abuse of special powers by law enforcement, but also of the extension of these powers to members of civil society. In fact, population monitoring and management strategies like Prevent heavily rely on the involvement of employees in the public sector, particularly in health and education. In the UK, ‘the education sector is already the greatest single source of referrals to Prevent’ (Grierson, 12 Jan). The NHS has also played an active role in referring individuals to counter-terrorism police. For example, when a patient mentioned his intent of getting arrested at an XR protest to his doctor, he was visited by law enforcement and questioned about his views. Anti-radicalisation and counter terrorism legislation therefore foster a climate of suspicion, justify invasions of privacy and create a social distinction between public servants enrolled in the ‘fight against radicalisation’ and private individuals expressing their political views.

Whether or not the Prevent strategy has been useful in deterring terrorist attacks in the UK, it is now encouraging social tensions and divides by displacing monitoring and surveillance tasks into educational and health institutions – the very institutions supposed to foster safe spaces that protect rather than violate individual privacy. Prevent has already been harshly criticised and is currently under review because of its discriminatory practices targeting British Muslims. The fact that the programme was (briefly) extended to environmental activism shows its obvious reliance on the singling out and stigmatization of groups that are perceived as subverting social stability and homogeneity.

It is frightening that difference – be it cultural or political – is being labelled a threat by law enforcement and that this idea permeates educational and health institutions. This is also a symptom of inherent flaws of British political governance; instead of engagement with radical opinions on open political platforms, public expression is increasingly being policed and suppressed in the name of security and stability.

 

Possibilities of structural change?

Radical climate action is being kept out of the political arena both through its labelling as an extreme ideology and through the policing of public protest. Not only does this fuel the idea that climate change is an issue that does not deserve public attention, it also lessens the ability of civil society to pressure policy makers into making concrete reforms. When counter-terrorism police include XR in their Prevent guide and when the Met police bans protests and arrests activists, law enforcement effectively serves as a shield between politicians and protesters. This ensures that challenges to the government’s political agenda are deterred and that legislators and MPs are not held publicly accountable for their less than adequate climate policies.

The divide between public opinion and government policy reflects a deep-rooted reluctance of the British government to implement transformative structural changes and to engage with progressive and subversive social movements. Climate action – alongside educational elitism, minority representation, homelessness – is one of many political challenges of the 21st century that the British government is refusing to engage with. Instead, we see a complete reliance on police forces to manage and suppress radical public expression. Rather than lose face by embracing transformative structural changes, the UK government clings to outdated policies, hierarchies and ideals of governance.

While the persistence of climate activists shows that climate action is a question that can no longer be relegated to the future, UK politicians show little interest in addressing these concerns in the immediate. For now, it seems that when rising waters and temperatures reach London, Westminster will shut its doors, raise the drawbridge and turn on the fan.

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Works Cited

BBC News. (2019) ‘Extinction Rebellion: High Court rules London protest ban unlawful’, BBC, 06 November 2019. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50316561 (09 February 2020)

 

CONTEST. (2018) The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Counter Terrorism, June 2018. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/716907/140618_CCS207_CCS0218929798-1_CONTEST_3.0_WEB.pdf (Accessed: 09 February 2020)

 

Dodd, V., Grierson, J. (2020) ‘Terrorism police list Extinction Rebellion as extremist ideology’, The Guardian, 10 January. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/10/xr-extinction-rebellion-listed-extremist-ideology-police-prevent-scheme-guidance (Accessed: 09 February 2020)

 

Evans, R. (2019) ‘NHS reports protester to Prevent for joining Extinction Rebellion’, The Guardian, 01 September. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep/01/nhs-reports-protester-to-prevent-extinction-rebellion (Accessed: 09 February 2020)

 

Grierson, J. (2020) ‘Extinction Rebellion guidance raises fresh concerns over Prevent’, The Guardian, 12 January. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/12/extinction-rebellion-guidance-raises-fresh-concerns-over-prevent (Accessed: 09 February 2020)

JUSTICE. ‘Counter-terrorism and human rights’. Available at: https://justice.org.uk/counter-terrorism-human-rights/ (Accessed: 09 February 2020)

MI5 Security Services. ‘What We Do: Counter-Terrorism’. Available at: https://www.mi5.gov.uk/counter-terrorism (Accessed: 09 February 2020)

The High Court of Justice. (2019) ‘Jones & Ors v Metropolitan Police Commissioner’ Approved Judgment, 06 November. Available at: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jones-Ors-v-Comm-of-Police-Approved-judgment.pdf (Accessed: 09 February 2020)