The Protest Speech Suppression Act

Our next UK import: The Terrorism Protest Speech Suppression Act

On Sunday August 24, both the Guardian and the New York Times carried articles worrying that the far Right was increasingly bold and secure, and articles detailing starvation and genocide in Gaza. At the same time, both UK and US governments have legislated or decided by edict to treat peaceful democratic protest as a national security threat. Their special target: the protest which draws attention to starvation and genocide in Gaza.

Aotearoa, always taking pride in our independent-minded foreign policy, are rushing to adopt something like the UK’s legislation. If we do, it will be our second such import this season. The divisive Harmony Accord is also a UK product that this government will use to reward its friends and sideline the community.

The government seeks to reform our Terrorism Suppression Act. The revisions would hasten the designation of terror while greatly broadening the idea of public support to terror. That breadth seems to include designating peaceful protest as a security threat. In an article entitled “slippery slope to authoritarianism”, Newsroom’s Sam Sachdeva summarises the  “limited consultation currently taking place behind closed doors with a handpicked selection of groups and experts.”

Guess who’s in and who’s out?

In the UK, it is now legal to arm Israel but it is terrorism to object. We have yet to see a single arrest for inciting or endorsing crimes against humanity. Instead, octogenarian clerics fill the cells for silently holding signs that oppose genocide. People have been arrested for satirising this, so presumably mocking the government’s asinine actions now constitutes a national security threat.

The UK legislation misuses the language of security to shut down peaceful protest. Terrorism arrests bypass normal, open judicial processes where those charged can be heard stating their case. While the legislation’s application has disproportionately targeted protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the issues are wider.

Our government is in a rush to award itself the same tools. If Luxon acts as the UK government has, he will undermine democracy in the guise of security, suppress protest and the right to a fair, open judicial process. He is acting without public consultation, and there is a character issue whenever a government schemes behind closed doors to suppress public challenge. Finally, there is the opportunity to misuse legislation in a way that sidelines real threats in favour of the us-and-them selective use of power.

This government habitually listens to friends and former lobbyists, as it has done with guns, alcohol, smoking and forestry, disregarding the community and placing people at risk. This action is true to habit. Luxon is legislating for friends at the expense of democracy – and immediately for Gaza.

We cannot separate this from genocide in Gaza, the focus of so much protest that this government would like to ignore. Palestine is already an issue on which protest speech has been confused with security threat in Aotearoa. The Community Security Group (CSG) has for years monitored individual New Zealanders’ social media and speech, and declared legal speech to be a threat to the Jewish community. The CSG has shared this information with our security forces and the embassy of Israel. The CSG is funded partly by government, including a recent new CSG staff position. They enjoy special access as a member of Mark Mitchell’s so-called harmony accord.

Already, anyone who speaks to the rights of Palestine and condemns Israel’s genocide knows they will be called a supporter of Hamas and an antisemite in Zionist performative politics. We who demand human rights face various underhanded tactics, but not arrest. For how much longer?

We regard this legislative act as a mechanism to draw the cord evermore tightly around government’s friends and enshrine new ways to target government’s critics. We regard it as a self-inflicted democratic injury, the act of an authoritarian seeking to intimidate and blunt protest.

We regard it as a misdirection. While this government is busy suppressing protest as terroristic, they are also robbing us of the language to grasp the real threats to our society which emerge from the far Right and disinformation networks.

Finally and foremost, we regard it as an intentional distraction from the desperate work of ending genocide in Gaza. This act would call it terrorism to draw attention to the state terror before our eyes. This act cuts us off from those to whom we have obligations.

Count on this: we will oppose this action in every way possible. Taking our lead from friends in the UK, we will fill the public squares with sign proclaiming our disgust at genocide and our government indifference to it. We are confident that we will be in fine company, in numbers too large to intimidate or arrest or disregard. Sometimes, personal impact brings forth the numbers that governments cannot resist. It happened with Viet Nam, when the draft brought the war home. Watching the policy absurdity unfolding in the UK, we think perhaps this legislation might tip the scales.

Alternative Jewish Voices