I’m taking a break from physio exercises, anti-inflammatory meds, way too much time spent in MMOs and the general malaise of eleven months of pandemic self-isolation and/or official lockdowns-of-debatable-effectiveness to weigh in on this.
As of 12:30 EST today, Canada has added the “Proud Boys” to it’s official list of terrorist groups. Also designated were the Atomwaffen Division, the Russian Imperial Movement and The Base, as well as a number of Islamist extremist organizations linked to Daesh. This official designation as “Idealogically Motivated Violent Extremist (IMVE) terrorist entities” gives law enforcement broader powers to investigate and charge these organizations as well as more tools to take down social media presence and place financial pressure on these organizations. Buy Proud Boys merch? That’s now a crime in Canada. Recruit for The Base? That’s a crime. Share videos from Atomwaffen or RIM? A crime.
(For a detailed breakdown of the far-right groups named, I highly recommend The Canadian Anti-Hate Network’s excellent post from earlier today.)
My thoughts about this are still developing and are somewhat varied, so this post is probably going to be all over the map, but I’ve always found writing to be a useful way of processing stuff, so here goes.
Continue reading “The Proud Boys are Terrorists”