Recent legislation and policy has gone beyond prohibiting direct acts of terrorism or their instigation to prohibit the ‘encouragement’ ‘glorification’ and even ‘justification’ of terrorism. The Terrorism Act 2006 creates a number of new offences, including the ‘ direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement’ of terrorism; while a 2005 Home Office Policy envisages exclusion or deportation of non-UK citizens for justifying or glorifying terrorism, amongst other things.
We are extremely concerned that these prohibitions violate the right to freedom of expression. The new terrorist offence of ‘direct or indirect encouragement’ of terrorism uses the broad definition of the 2000 Act, and adds to that the vague and broad terms of direct or indirect “encouragement” or “other inducement”. In addition, the 2006 Act prohibits the “glorification” of terrorism, if “members of the public could reasonably be expect to infer that what is being glorified is being glorified as conduct that should be emulated by them in existing circumstances”. The Home Office Policy adds the even broader term of “justification” to the list of prohibited forms of expression but only for non-citizens.
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