In an official leaflet intended for the institutions and the various security services, the British anti-terrorist services classified the radical environmental group Extinction Rebellion as a terrorist organization, reported The Guardian . Only, under pressure from activists, the police have decided to back down.
In this booklet, Extinction Rebellion is presented as “a campaign encouraging protest and civil disobedience to put pressure on governments to act on climate change and the extinction of species” .
The organization was thus placed alongside terrorist groups such as the neo-Nazi group National Action and Al-Muhajiroun, which has pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Among the programme points of the ecological organisation, we find clear encouragements to actions outside the law and a protesting philosophy, even boasting about its capacity to attract the youngest minds.
Extinction Rebellion quickly reacted in a furious press release, according to the HuffPost.”In a world of misinformation, where lies travel faster than the truth, we cannot help but wonder if this was a deliberate attempt to silence a legitimate cause. Wouldn’t it be better if they focused on the real extremists? Fossil fuel companies, ” the organisation wrote.
Faced with the uproar caused by this announcement, the police decided to back-pedal, claiming an error in a press release. “I want to make it clear that we do not classify Extinction Rebellion as an extremist organisation. The inclusion of Extinction Rebellion in this document was an error in judgment and we will now review its entire content ”, promised the head of the southeast section of the police, the source of the document.
The distributed leaflets were also recalled, according to The Guardian.
The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, which supports XR’s course of strong action and demands, said that the time frame being urged by XR was “an ambition that technically, economically and politically has absolutely no chance of being fulfilled.” They calculated that to go net zero by 2025, flying would need to be scrapped and 38 million petrol and diesel cars would need to be removed from the roads. Twenty-six million gas boilers would need to be disconnected in six years.
When the movement expanded to the US, a racial demand was added to that group’s list of demands: for a “just transition that prioritises the most vulnerable and indigenous sovereignty [and] establishes reparations and remediation led by and for black people, indigenous people, people of colour and poor communities for years of environmental injustice”.
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