The US State Department has designated four organizations in Germany, Greece, and Italy as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
US President Donald Trump’s administration has designated four European groups as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” due to their ties to the tight-knit left-wing movement known as Antifa.
Thursday’s announcement was another step in President Trump’s campaign to dismantle Antifa, which stands for “anti-fascist.”
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
The four groups targeted by sanctions include Germany’s Antifa Ost. Unofficial Italian Federation of Anarchists/International Revolutionary Front (FAI/FRI). Armed proletarian justice in Greece. Similarly, Greece’s right to revolutionary class self-defense.
As part of Thursday’s statement, the U.S. State Department announced additional plans to list four groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” effective Nov. 20.
The group accused the four groups of carrying out numerous acts of violence across Europe in the fight against capitalism, right-wing governments and the oppression of the Palestinian people.
The U.S. State Department warned that the designation would affect U.S.-based individuals or entities that do business with the four groups.
“Those who engage in certain transactions or activities with those designated today may be at risk of sanctions,” the State Department said in a statement. “In particular, engaging in certain transactions with them carries the risk of secondary sanctions by counterterrorism authorities.”
President Trump expands definition of ‘terrorism’
Critics have accused the Trump administration of expanding the definition of “terrorism” far beyond its traditional meaning.
“Terrorism” is often used to describe domestic and foreign threats that use violence to achieve political ends, but President Trump has applied the label to drug cartels, Latin American gangs, and Antifa.
But experts say Antifa is a broad political movement, a protest movement without a unified leader. Antifa protests are generally viewed as a collection of principles rather than an organized movement, and many Antifa protests are peaceful.
Nevertheless, on September 22, President Trump issued an executive order designating left-wing groups as “domestic terrorist organizations.”
“Antifa is a militaristic, anarchist organization that unequivocally calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement, and our nation’s legal system,” President Trump said in the executive order.
“To achieve these objectives, they organize and carry out campaigns of violence and terrorism nationwide using illegal means.”
This designation could make Antifa-related activities illegal. Providing “material support” to designated “terrorist” groups is a crime under federal law.
However, since Antifa is not a cohesive group and is made up of several autonomous groups with varying funding sources, which are often not made public, there is no way to determine who funds the movement.
Experts have also raised concerns about First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association under the U.S. Constitution, arguing that Trump’s designation could weaken left-wing activism.
“Referring to ‘Antifa’ in the singular is misleading and impacts President Trump’s efforts to suppress the left,” historian Mark Bray, author of “Antifa: An Anti-Fascist Handbook,” told Al Jazeera in September.
Bray questioned Trump’s assertion that Antifa is an “organized” group that “hides its funding sources and operations to frustrate law enforcement.”
“He’s trying to promote a common conspiracy theory on the right that behind every action on the left is a shadowy capitalist like George Soros who is playing puppet master,” Bray explained.
“The reality is that Antifa groups don’t have large budgets at all, and what they have is basically crowdsourced or generated from the members themselves. In fact, most of it is for bail money.”
Experts like Bray agree that Antifa is an ideology, not an organized group.
“Antifa is a type of politics, not a specific group,” Bray told Al Jazeera. “Feminist groups exist, but feminism itself is not a group.”
The historian warned that President Trump’s efforts to label Antifa a “terrorist organization” could be used as “an all-out pretext for the regime to crack down on its own left,” underscoring concerns about political repression under right-wing presidents.
