Thread by @netpol

It has been 'subversive', 'agitator', then 'extremist'. Now the police are labelling campaigners demanding genuine alternatives to the mess Britain is in right now as "aggravated activists". On 15 February 2023, we are reclaiming that label as our own on #AggravatedActivism Day

Amidst a growing intolerance towards the right to protest, Netpol has been keen to remind everyone that protest is not illegal – not yet – but it has become a lot more uncertain. Together, we need to create the conditions to challenge the spread of uncertainty.

That’s why we have called on campaigners to avoid seeing themselves in isolation from others and to understand that the threat of oppressive policing falls on all of us – so we better start offering solidarity to each other.

That need for solidarity was the driver for announcing a day to celebrate our fundamental right to express our displeasure and anger about the mess Britain is now in. We are taking the new label the police see as a negative and turning it into one we are proud to embrace.

Planning a meeting, a protest, a talk, a lecture, a picket or an action in mid-February? Hold it on the 15th - and label it as an ‘Aggravated Activism Day’ celebration. Let us know and we will help to publicise your event.

If you are in London on 15 February, join us for Aggravated! - an evening of dissident comedy with @markthomasinfo to celebrate Netpol's Aggravated Activism Day, at the Museum of Comedy in Bloomsbury. Tickets here: museumofcomedy.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/sh…

Watch our campaign video on YouTube at

Side note of the long history of negative labels of campaigners to justify surveillance on them. On Friday the ongoing public inquiry into undercover policing published a Special Branch report from 1983

Entitled ‘Political Extremism and the Campaign for Police Accountability within the Metropolitan Police District’, it smears campaigners for police accountability in London 40 years ago as "significantly influenced by political extremists whose motives are questionable"

One of the groups smeared by Special Branch was a founding member of Netpol, the Newham Monitoring Project. Others include @libertyhq and @INQUEST_ORG. We can only speculate on what the Met is writing about campaigners today. You can read the report here ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/upl…

h/t to @UndercoverNet for highlighting this document (and for reading everything that comes out of the undercover policing inquiry)