Membership in Atomwaffen or its successor group now carries a potential 10-year prison sentence in the U.K. The British government has officially banned Atomwaffen Division and its successor organization, National Socialist Order (NSO), as criminal terrorist groups, meaning membership in either in the U.K. now carries a potential 10-year prison sentence. On Monday, Home Secretary Priti Pratel issued a motion for Parliament to “proscribe” Atomwaffen Division—a mostly U.S. based neo-Nazi terror group that disbanded last year and was connected to five stateside murders—as an “outlaw” group. Today, it was ratified by Parliament. (…) In response to the ban, a leader within the NSO who previously headed an Atomwaffen cell told VICE World News that he wasn’t shocked by the criminal proscription of the group, and questioned why the disbanded organization was also named. “We’re not at all surprised over it. The U.K. government consistently falls all over itself to ban any dissidents that have a real public image,” he said, claiming that the group is exclusively American. “NSO’s program even states that we are a U.S.-only organization, the only reason for them to ban us is to virtue signal.” Labour MP Bambos Charalambous, shadow minister for the Home Office, which oversees national policing, questioned why it had taken so long for the government to recognize the threat of Atomwaffen and urged it to list other far-right groups operating in the U.K. as terrorist organizations.
via vice: British Government Bans Atomwaffen Division As Criminal Terrorist Organization
