An activist with a child was sent strange letters from the Department of Work & Pensions detailing his child benefit & details of his parents pension. He was then telephoned with the warning "We know everything about you & if we want we can get your parents pension money interfered with at any time". The activist said the person phoning was a woman & that she had " an Australian or New Zealand accent. What's scary is that he did not any time given the DWP his mobile phone number.
The activist, a student who has only recently attended climate, animal rights and anti fascist actions and meetings was sent odd letters with personal details on. One of the letters stated "We are going to change the way in which you are paid back" with his parent's pension details on the letter. He was then sent another letter with details of his child benefit that had, other than a few minor details, the same wording. He is young, new to activism and was understandably freaked out by it. He said that it seems like the government have stooped to a new and frightening low in trying to stop people being activists and admits that this has put him off a bit although he still goes to actions but won't tell people his real name in future or give out his phone number so readily at actions. He said it was really worrying and that he at no time gave the DWP his mobile phone number, can't work out how they got hold of it and he believes that MI5 could have been behind it the intimidation. He doesn't believe that it was a joke played on him by other students who wouldn't have access to National Insurance numbers and other DWP details that were on the letters.
We expect that anti activists will write silly replies with "Oh come on now" or "who is the activist" or "now you are really are losing it / getting paranoid" but we believe that he received the phone calls and the letters are genuinely weird.
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