In the UK and around the world, those who challenge rich corporations are being hounded and crushed with ever-more inventive penalties<\/p>\n
Why are peaceful protesters treated like terrorists, while actual terrorists (especially on the far right, and especially in the US<\/a>) often remain unmolested by the law? Why, in the UK, can you now potentially <\/strong>receive a longer sentence for \u201cpublic nuisance<\/a>\u201d \u2013 non-violent civil disobedience \u2013 than for rape or manslaughter? Why are ordinary criminals being released early<\/a> to make space in overcrowded prisons, only for the space to be refilled with political prisoners: people trying peacefully to defend the habitable planet?<\/p>\n There\u2019s a simple explanation. It was clearly expressed by a former analyst<\/a> at the US Department of Homeland Security. \u201cYou don\u2019t have a bunch of companies coming forward saying: \u2018I wish you\u2019d do something about these rightwing extremists.\u2019\u201d The disproportionate policing of environmental protest, the new offences and extreme sentences, the campaigns of extrajudicial persecution<\/a> by governments around the world are not, as politicians constantly assure us, designed to protect society. They\u2019re a response to corporate lobbying.<\/p>\n George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the UK and around the world, those who challenge rich corporations are being hounded and crushed with ever-more inventive penalties Why are peaceful protesters treated like terrorists, while actual terrorists (especially on the far right, and especially in the US) often remain unmolested by the law? Why, in the UK, can you now potentially … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}