Section 14

A group of science fiction authors in Britain has written an anthology of short stories to deliberately break the new Terrorism Act.

The Act prohibits behaviour which “glorifies the commission or preparation” of terrorist acts.

The book, Glorifying Terrorism, features stories which praise “terrorism” from the likes of Nelson Mandela.

Welcome to Rackstraw Press, created in response to the Terrorism Act of 2006 - the controversial ban on the glorification of terrorism in the UK.

This Act is opposed by people from many political parties as an attack on free speech. Government protests that it will only be used if someone “directly incites” terrorism have been regarded as implausible by lawyers who point to the many other laws which currently cover this action.

Science fiction is a political genre. There are many science fiction writers who have already written novels and stories which could be considered in contravention of the law.

Everything evil that terrorists might get up to, like blowing stuff up or planning to blow stuff up, is already illegal. There is absolutely no justification for criminalising the expression of opinion; if the battle aganst terrorism is a battle against those who would destroy our freedoms, this sort of legislation is a scorched earth policy.

There is no value in the Jim Anderton approach (used when discussing media censorship of suicide stories) that sweeping censorship should be used to keep the “lowest common denominators” in line. Criminalising everyone with wide ranging laws and then picking and choosing who to prosecute is police state behaviour.

Hat tip: Boing Boing.