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Originally Posted by John Henry
We would of course be taking to the streets about this, if we still had the right to free protest:
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Unfortunately, this is just the latest in a gradual slicing away of freedom.
From the article above, with reference to Aug 2004: |
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The Right to Protest
Laws intended to combat problems from anti-social behaviour to terrorism are being used against legitimate protesters.
Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the police to stop and search anyone in a specific area. S.44 was used against those travelling to anti-war demos, arms fair protesters and anti-capitalist protesters.
Our legal challenge to s.44, and its use by the Metropolitan Police, is to be heard by the House of Lords in Spring 05.
Protesters are also being issued with Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) by police and local authorities. Breaching an ASBO - which lists forbidden behaviour such as waving a banner or being in a certain area - is a criminal offence and can result in imprisonment.
The Government's Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill proposes to make all offences arrestable, which means that protesters who might receive a warning could be arrested. The police would then be able to store their details, fingerprints and DNA.
The Bill also widens ASBOs, by allowing unaccountable public or bodies to seek them against individuals.
It creates a new criminal offence of trespass on a ‘designated site’ on grounds of national security. ‘National security’ is not defined, which risks the new offence being used against protesters.
There are also proposals to prevent protest outside Parliament. Under the latest version of the Bill it will be an offence to take part in any unauthorised protest within 1 km of parliament.
This extreme measure is a new addition to the Bill, replacing the incredible proposal that senior police officers have the power to remove someone if they are ‘spoiling the view’. This was clearly clearly directed at Brian Haw, who has maintained a site in Parliament Square against the war in Iraq for the past few years.
After significant pressure from commercial interests, ‘economic sabotage’ will also become a criminal offence. This is clearly aimed at animal rights protestors.
The right to protest is a crucial part of political life, with a strong British history. We must defend it.
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Heh damn wtf is going on over there with you guys, this is just insane. I thought what was happening over here was bad but that is going way too far. "Spoiling the view"?? What the hell kind of shit is that?
The part that worries me is that since the UK has been taking suggestions from the US on how to "handle terrorism" by taking up our recent move to imprison people w/o charges for however long the government wants w/o any possible arguement, how long will it be before the US looks toward the UK and their removal of things like right to protest and assimilates that? So we'll basically be trading this kind of crap back and forth taking eachothers examples on new and inventive ways to totaly remove the rights of every citizen. There's already that patriot II stuff here that would/does/has propose(d) that the government could just take away citizenship from whoever they deem unworthy and even there after deport that person to whatever country they want. Oh yea, all without a charge or defense too, gotta love that part!