I agree with Joshua Rozenberg (‘Palestine Action ban makes us all safer’) that the Court of Appeal judgment was right. However, I have never been convinced that the regime of the Terrorism Act 2000 was needed.

Incitement to commit a crime, even against unidentified members of a group, was established as an offence in 1881 (R v Most). The novelty in 2000 was preaching that the increased chance of a pleasing afterlife would be a reward for criminal acts. That could have been defined in statute as equivalent to incitement without introducing the regime in question. So it struck me then that the motives for introducing the regime were discreditable; that is, to be seen as doing something dramatic and to make convictions easier by spreading the offences to relatively innocuous actions. However, let it be supposed that some sort of regime was needed. It would have been manageably draftable, and more consistent with freedom of speech, to provide additionally for designation of organisations as social disruptors (those that aimed at harm to property alone rather than persons). In their case, membership and provision of assistance could have remained an offence, but mere expressions of support would not have been.

Peter Davis, Welwyn, Herts

 

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