To nobody’s surprise also the London Bridge assassins were known to the authorities. One of them has been in a tv-documentary about jihadism. And he was reported trying to convert children he met in a park to Islam. According to himself, he would be prepared to kill his own mother in the name of Allah.
Responsible for the authorities that are supposed to handle things like this was – between 2010 and 2016 – now Prime Minister Theresa May.
Today her only comment is that she would like to censor the Internet.
Censoring information and maximizing surveillance of the people is not the way to defend democracy. That would rather be to support the terrorists strive to destroy our open and free society. And it would do very little to stop religious radicalization.
To Theresa Mays defense, it should be said that it is not all that easy to know what to do. You can hardly lock people up who have not (yet) committed any crime. You cannot jail people because of their skin color, their cultural background, their faith or their political beliefs. And you should not punish entire ethnic groups because of the deeds of a few.
There must be better ways to defeat terrorism.
/ HAX
A few links:
London Bridge terrorist ‘was in Channel 4 documentary about British jihadis’ »
Theresa May Blames The Internet For London Bridge Attack; Repeats Demands To Censor It »
‘Blame the internet’ is just not a good enough response, Theresa May »
Tim Farron warns of win for terrorists if web is made surveillance tool »
A good way to start defeating terrorism would be to stop nurturing terrorism by paying potential jihadists to migrate to the west. Of course that would imply a stop for paying anybody to migrate to the west, but that’s just an added bonus.