Terrorism Bill — Clause 1 — Encouragement of Terrorism — 15 Feb 2006 at 15:15

Those voting Aye removed a Lords amendment to Clause 1 of the Terrorism Bill

The original words of subsection 1(4) were:

It is irrelevant... whether the statement relates to the [a] particular act of terrorism... or of acts of terrorism... generally; and whether any person is in fact encouraged or induced by the statement.

The Lords had changed this to:

For the purposes of this [law] "indirect encouragement" comprises the making of a statement describing terrorism in such a way that the listener would infer that he should emulate it.

And those voting Aye in the Commons changed it back, before committing a number of other of their own changes listed at the bottom of the debate.

The dispute appears to be whether a statement which glorifies terrorism should be an offence, even if it has no effect and was not intended to have an effect on anyone's physical activity.

Debate in Parliament | Source |