Offender Management

The Ministry of Kettling and Photography Prevention has issued some new guidelines about domestic extremism, which is defined as "unlawful action that is part of a protest or campaign". The unlawful actions covered by this definition include anything from minor public order offences such as civil disobedience or looking at buildings in a funny way, through making jokes on the internet about blowing up airports to, presumably, plotting the assassination of party donors and conspiring to cause explosions in the service of causes other than the continuing fiscal welfare of oil companies and mercenary outfits. Such unlawful actions are "often associated with a 'single issue' protest such as animal rights, far-right and far-left political extremism, anti-war and environmentalist extremism" and, while more criminal than activism, fall short of actual terrorism. Asked about the justification for lumping environmentalists and anti-war campaigners in with political extremists, a Ministry spokesbeing was forced to answer a completely different question, stating that: "It is not true to say that offenders who have committed criminal offences in connection with an extremist cause are 'all treated the same'." Far-right political extremists are generally arrested quietly and placed on trial with due regard for their human rights; a very different proposition from the treatment meted out to suspected Muslim extremists, who can be placed under house arrest, deported or, if sufficiently unarmed and innocent of any wrongdoing, shot and defamed. Anti-war campaigners and environmentalists, on the other hand, are merely harassed, provoked, confined, abused and assaulted.