There has been outrage this week at the arrests and threat of arrest of anti-monarchy protesters. However the arrests have also led to a lot of misinformation and alarmist statements about the law and our right to protest.
There has been considerable press interest in the fairly small number of arrests (or threats of arrests) of anti-monarchists since the Queen’s death on 8 September.
In recent days, there’s been outrage as anti-monarchy protesters have either been arrested or threatened with arrest.
However, the arrests have also led to a lot of misinformation and alarmist statements about the law and our rights.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act has changed the law on highway obstruction.
With campaigners regularly arrested for blocking roads, it is essential everyone knows about these changes and what they mean.
Join me for a special Good Law Project live event: “Is the UK shutting down dissent? Protest in the new age of policing powers” on Wednesday 15 June at 5pm.
The Government has changed the law to make it easier for the police to restrict where and how we protest, and it’s set to do so again in the coming months. For many, freedom of
assembly is essential to a healthy democracy. Just how worried should we be about the new powers the Government has given the police, and itself, to limit protest?
BY RICHARD SPENCE
UK Home Secretary Priti Patel is a leading supporter of the “state threats” bill that has press freedom advocates concerned. (Photo: ukhouseoflords)This article was funded by paid subscribers of The Dissenter Newsletter. Take 25% off and become a monthly subscriber to help us continue our independent journalism
All main political parties in the United Kingdom have called for immediate passage in Parliament of new measures to fight “state threats,” which would restrict press freedom and threaten civil liberties.
On 28th April, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill received Royal Assent. Thousands of us took to the streets to resist this draconian legislation. But the battle against the bill was never going to be won in parliament, and it’s now down to all of us to make it unenforceable on the streets.
PHOTO: Insulate BritainOn Sunday at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Home Secretary Priti Patel announced the latest punitive proposals for new police powers in her ongoing vendetta against political and social movements the government refuses to engage with.
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7 June 2021 — NetPol
PHOTO: Resist G7
Protests against the forthcoming G7 summit, from 11-13 June in Carbis Bay in Cornwall, are expected to face a huge policing operation that includes exclusion zones and around 6500 officers from around the country. A coalition of organisations under the banner “Resist G7” are organising demonstrations on each day of the summit and separately, Extinction Rebellion South West plans a series of actions.
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5 May 2021 — Netpol
Netpol is encouraging campaigners who for years have fought to stop fracking in their communities to share their experiences of the oppressive and violent policing at protests with Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.
13 April 2021 — NetPol
PHOTO: Splento
Since the confrontational crackdown by the Metropolitan Police on women holding a vigil for Sarah Everard at Clapham Common on 13 March, a growing movement has condemned police intolerance to the right to protest and warned this will only become worse with the passing of the government’s 307 page Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
So what exactly does the bill propose?
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8 April 2021 — Netpol
One of the potential consequences for people taking part in protests against the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, or other protests in the coming months, is receiving a fixed penalty notice (FPN) for allegedly breaching health protection regulations.
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9 March, 2021 — Netpol
Protester at a Black Lives Matter protest in London in 2020. Photo: Shutterstock
Please sign the petition rejecting the government’s new crackdown on freedom to protest.
The coronavirus pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on our ability to take to the streets. Now the Home Office is busy preparing, in readiness for when public health restrictions start to ease, to make sweeping changes to public order legislation that will give the police extra powers to restrict future protests.
10 March 2021 — Good Law Project
Other than at a General Election – an event occurring at five-yearly intervals that hands unconstrained power to a Party that wins a majority – a citizen has but one way of registering dissent at what is done in their name: the right to protest. Yesterday the Government announced its intention to legislate that right out of meaningful existence.
10 July 2014 — The Greanville Post
Want to hear the worst idea in the history of horrible ideas? How about we take the industry responsible for destroying the U.S. economy and wrecking the lives of tens of millions of people, and then allow it to create a “government-industry cyber war council.”It appears that trillions in taxpayer bailouts simply wasn’t enough for Wall Street.
31 May 2014 — Counterpunch
Why are the streets of New York, Washington D.C., London and Paris so orderly, so quiet?
Are we – opposition investigative journalists, philosophers and documentary filmmakers – doing such a terrible job? Are we not providing the North American and European public with enough information, enough proof about the monstrous state of the world? Enough so they – the citizens of the Empire – finally get thoroughly pissed off, detach their backsides from their couches and chairs, and flood the capitals and business centers with their bodies, demanding change, demanding the end to atrocities that are being committed all over the world… the end of this imperialist and neo-con madness?
18 May 2014 — RT
Thousands of activists took to the streets of Germany and Spain on Saturday to protest the EU’s policies as the union prepares for parliamentary elections at the end of May.
In Germany, the EU’s powerhouse, people participated in a day of anti-Brussels protests in Hamburg and the capital Berlin.
12 May 2014 — WSWS
“While the current rash of anti-democratic measures largely targets non-citizens, mainly of Middle-Eastern descent, they constitute a fundamental attack on the basic rights of the entire population. These attacks will be extended to American citizens, especially those who oppose the government’s policies, sooner rather than later.”
29 April 2014 — Bishopsgate Institute
For those of you in London and surrounds, this might be of interest to you:
19 February 2014 — RT
Anti-government rioters aim their weapons during clashes with riot police in Independence Square in Kiev February 18, 2014. (AFP Photo / Genya Savilov)
Corpses on the streets, burning police trucks and military-clad rioters beating law enforcement officers to death with clubs. This collection of visuals proves the words ‘peaceful protests’ are inapplicable to Kiev.
The New Dark Age 