Miguel Afonso Caetano"A new “cumulative disruption” clause in the Crime and Policing Bill would allow police to restrict protests based on the combined impact of repeated demonstrations—powers critics say are broad, vague and risk sweeping up movements from Palestine solidarity to climate and peace campaigns.
Keir Starmer is often mocked for his professional background in human rights. If only.
He will be familiar with the words of Lord Hoffman, often cited by civil liberties lawyers, acknowledging the long and honourable history in Britain of people breaking the law “to affirm their belief in the injustice of a law or government… It is the mark of a civilised community that it can accommodate protests and demonstrations of this kind.”
Hoffman argued for an unspoken bargain: protestors should act with a sense of proportion and not cause excessive damage or inconvenience. The police and magistrates should behave with restraint and take into account the conscientious motives of the activists.
That case was barely 20 years ago, and Hoffman’s words would have been celebrated by a rising QC involved in the case. He was called Keir Starmer. As Lennon and McCartney once put it: Get back to where you once belonged."
#UK #Activism #Quakers #CivilDisobedience #HumanRights #Prostest
Kim Perales
Script Kiddie
Brendan
Wolna Biblioteka Wrocław
WDR (inoffiziell)