The hacktivists group “Anonymous” has “declared war on the British Government following the arrest of five people in the UK,” the Independent reported.

The declaration was made in an online statement that “called on supporters to hit government websites with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, a relatively simple way of flooding a target website with so many requests for information that it is forced to shut down.” DDoS attacks were used by “Anonymous” to take down numerous sites in December such as  the websites of PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, the Swedish prosecutor’s office and Joe Lieberman’s U.S. Senate site.

The statement by “Anonymous” further called DDoS attacks “an online equivalent of direct action as a form of protest,” according to the Independent.

“Arresting somebody for taking part in a DDoS attack is exactly like arresting somebody for attending a peaceful demonstration in their hometown,” the statement reportedly said.

“Anonymous believes this right to peacefully protest is one of the fundamental pillars of any democracy and should not be restricted in any way. Moreover, we have noted that similar attacks have also been carried out against Wikileaks itself, yet so far, nobody has been arrested in connection with these attacks, nor are there even any signs of an investigation into this issue at all.”

iMediaEthics plans to look into the topic of DDos attacks serving as an enemy of free speech.