The Thought Police (thinkpol in Newspeak) were the secret police of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four whose job it was to uncover and punish thought crime.

The Thought Police used psychology and omnipresent surveillance to find and eliminate members of society who were capable of the mere thought of challenging ruling authority.

Orwell's Thought Police and their pursuit of thoughtcrime was based on the methods used by the totalitarian states and competing ideologies of the 20th century.

There is now a 21st century version practised in the West, particularly by the US and Britain.

Screaming Headline from US Website: Jihad on Campus

The article is pure pro-Israel anti-Muslim propaganda. I've dissected it, in order to present an alternative reading.

A case that has just ended at the Old Bailey criminal court in London throws light on how far the 'war on terror' has taken us.

The case involves a schoolboy and four Muslim students at Bradford University who have been convicted of “possessing articles for terrorism”—in other words, downloading radical Islamic material from the Internet.

Yes, that's it. Five young British Muslim men have been jailed for downloading and sharing information. During their trial they argued that they were not terrorists but intellectually curious.

If I were a Muslim, I too would be interested in radical literature.

The only reason this particular group came to light was that a 17-year-old member, who had run away from home, told his parents about the group’s activities.

The parents decided to tell the police, who arrested the other group members. A terrible example of an older generation, so indoctrinated by 'western values' that they were prepared to go to such extremes.

The BBC interviewed one of the students, who said that he had not actually seen or read the violent material, including terrorism manuals, found on his computer.

He insisted that he still believed he had a duty to fight those who “invaded Muslim lands.” Absolutely.

One hopes that we are witnessing a prelude to a generational radicalization not since the 1960’s.

Left-wing radicalism of the Baader-Meinhof or Red Brigade guerrilla groups never enjoyed the popular base that radical Islam now has, nor did it have the Internet as a tool of information and organization.

Online radicalisation

After police arrested the students, their probing of computers revealed a lot of radical material - chatroom transcripts, jihadi songs and rhetorical texts.

The five had all spent hours online in their respective bedrooms, or at college, talking to other radicalised youngsters in areas of the internet where young Muslims with similar intellectual curiosity shared their ideas.

While none of the men had plans to be bombers in the UK, some of them had downloaded technical information on bombs and portions of what the police described as an Al Qaeda training manual.

The four students did however have plans to go to Pakistan.

Young radicals wanted to go to Spain in the 1930s, to fight fascism. In the sixties they admired guerrillas fighting in Latin America. Where these young Muslims that different?

The prosecution said the men were sufficiently far down the road to be a real danger.

Counsel for the defence argued that the plans were, at best, incoherent and amateurish.

Sentencing the five men to a total of 13 years is appalling. They were found gulity of 'thought crimes'.

The Supposedly 'Balanced' BBC Headline:

"Extremist Students Are Sentenced"

Four Bradford University students and a schoolboy who planned to fight British soldiers and die as martyrs have been sentenced by a court at the Old Bailey.

The judge said they were "intoxicated" by radical Islamist propaganda.

Mohammed Irfan Raja, 19, received two years' youth detention while Aitzaz Zafar, 20, and Awaab Iqbal, 20, received three years' detention.

Usman Ahmed Malik, 21, was sent to prison for three years and Akbar Butt, 20, was given 27 months' detention.

'Crossed the line'

They had all been found guilty of possessing material for terrorist purposes.

According to the prosecution, the group were all planning to go to Pakistan for training before going to fight jihad.

Recorder of London Judge Peter Beaumont said the group had prepared to train in Pakistan and then fight in Afghanistan against its allies, which included British soldiers.

He said the defendants were born in Britain and enjoyed freedom of speech and worship.

The judge said: "You were intoxicated by the extremist nature of the material each one of you collected - the songs, images and the language of violent jihad.

"And so carried away by that material were you that each of you crossed the line.

Propaganda

"That is exactly what the people that peddle this material want to achieve and exactly what you did."

He also said the sentences had to be a deterrent "to stop them and you and, to protect this country and its citizens abroad, a message has to be sent".

The Bradford University students were arrested after schoolboy Raja, of Ilford, east London, ran away from home in February last year.

The trial at the Old Bailey heard that he left a note for his parents saying he was going to fight abroad and they would meet again in heaven.

Raja had been recruited by the students on the internet - Zafar, of Rochdale, Lancashire, Malik and Iqbal, of Bradford, and Butt, of Southall, west London.

Raja had exchanged radical Islamist propaganda materials with them before going to stay with them.

But he returned home three days later after his parents begged him to come back.

BBC News

tags: britain  authoritarian  terror  propaganda  racism  thought crime  

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