alt Hacker NewsYes. They're a bunch of violent criminals. But that's not the point.
There are lots of violent criminals who harm businesses and injure, or even kill people. They should be prosecuted and imprisoned. It's not illegal to say "I support <name of criminal or criminal gang>", even if people strongly disagree with you.
However, by showing they could break into an RAF base and spraypaint the planes - that says to me that the RAF are completely shit at their job, how can they protect their base from Russians if they can't even keep out local criminals - embarrassed the Government, and the government retaliated by making it illegal to say you support them.
Say it out loud? Criminal. Wear a t-shirt? Criminal. Hold a placard? Criminal.
Might as well just hold up blank sheets of paper and wait for the police to arrest you because they know what you want to write on them, like they do in Russia.
To me, that's a free speech issue. What an affront to free speech it is. Saying you support criminal scumbags should not be a crime. You should be able to say you support a bunch of violent yahoos, to whoever will listen to you, and I should be able to laugh at you and call you a simpleton for your idiot beliefs.
I'm not sure they've been shown to be violent (unless you consider damage to property as violence- I know some do, but personally my "things are just things" stance limits violence to actions which impact people, who matter.
Broadly speaking though, I agree. What they did was criminal damage, undoubtedly, I have no problem arresting and prosecuting people for that. But I don't believe that it's terrorism, nor that it would have been so unpopular had it not been bloody embarrassing for the armed forces. Honestly, bolt cutters and some paint should not be grounding some of your air defence.