UK police to arrest you if "likely" to protest

 


British interior minister or home secretary Suella Braverman is quietly attempting to hand herself new powers to clamp down on the government’s political opponents, civil right advocates have warned. This in a country which brands itself as a democracy and first world. 

The home secretary has tabled a last-minute amendment to a widely criticised anti-protest bill that would allow her to apply for injunctions against anyone she deems ‘likely’ to carry out protests that could cause ‘serious disruption’ to ‘key national infrastructure’, prevent access to ‘essential’ goods or services, or have a ‘serious adverse effect on public safety’. The proposal would also give police the power to arrest anyone they suspect to be breaching such an injunction.

Leading human rights groups say that the Public Order Bill, which is set to reach its final stages in the Commons today, would align the UK’s anti-protest laws with those in Russia and Belarus.

The bill includes new powers, such as protest banning orders, that the government was forced to exclude from its Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (PCSC) after they were voted down in the House of Lords earlier this year. 

Shell and Exxon have already successfully secured injunctions from the UK courts that, under the new bill, could lead to climate protesters being given unlimited fines or a maximum six months prison sentences if they block or damage petrol stations and other oil facilities in England and Wales. 

Other measures proposed in the bill include giving courts the power to issue Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPOs), which can ban individuals from attending protests.

The bill has also come under fire from anti-racist campaingers for expanding stop and search powers, despite evidence that it is ineffective and disproportionately targets ethnic minorities, particularly young Black men.

Police would be given powers to stop and search people or vehicles even if they have no “reasonable grounds” to do so, if a senior officer believes protest offences are likely to take place in an area. Currently, authorities are only supposedly allowed to carry out so-called “suspicionless” stop and search when there is an imminent threat of serious violence. 

Other measures in the bill include a new offence that criminalises the protest tactic of “locking on” where people attach themselves to one another or an immovable object. Protesters could be jailed for six months or given an unlimited fine if by doing so they cause, or could cause, serious disruption.

Those stopped and found to have items on them – such as bike lock or superglue – which are intended to be used for a “locking on” protest could also be fined an unlimited amount.

The bill also proposes a new offence of interfering with “the use or operation of any key national infrastructure in England and Wales”, or intending to, which includes natural gas sites as well as roads, rail networks and airports.

The home secretary wrote in the Daily Mail on Saturday that protesters from Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are “thugs and vandals” and that the Public Order Bill “will put the safety and interests of the law-abiding majority first”. 


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