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Public Order Act: More police powers won’t stop us, vow protesters [1]
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Date: 2023-06
Insulate Britain activists hauled into a police station for holding posters near Inner London Crown Court have said tough new anti-protest laws will not stop people fighting back.
Home secretary Suella Braverman unilaterally pushed through new protest restrictions last week that had already been voted down in Parliament. The legislation will give police unprecedented power to shut down any protest causing “more than minor” disruption.
Sally Davidson, an Insulate Britain supporter who was arrested earlier this year on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, told openDemocracy the new police powers are “astonishing”. A trio of Davidson, Cathy Eastburn and Oliver Rock had sought to remind jurors about their right to acquit climate protesters “based on their conscience”.
“The home secretary is bringing in further and further detail about what is criminal in terms of fighting for your life against a government who are happy to not insulate people's homes,” said Davidson. “They’re happy to basically watch the world burn; they’re happy to licence more oil and gas fields within the UK in the full knowledge of what this is doing to people's homes and communities.”
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But she added that people would “continue to be in resistance; they’re going to continue to block roads; they’re going to continue to resist in court when things are happening that are not fair and just”.
Rock added: “This criminalisation of protest – in particular, of environmental protest – is an example of attempting to shoot the messenger. These elected politicians obviously don’t really care about protecting people’s democratic rights.”
He said: “Things are just going to get worse with the climate and the environment. This is a crisis that is going to accelerate, and it’s going to make living conditions harder… People are going to kick off about this.”
All three are still waiting to see if they will be charged with an offence. Ironically, the message they were arrested for displaying was a simplified version of a plaque already on display at the Old Bailey in London, referencing a landmark trial in 1670.
Their actions followed the jailing by judge Silas Reid of several Insulate Britain protesters for contempt of court after they defied a ban on mentioning the climate crisis or fuel poverty in their statements to jurors.
They took inspiration from Trudi Warner, an activist who had held a similar sign outside Inner London Crown Court a few weeks earlier.
Eastburn, who was arrested in the corridors of the Old Bailey where she had gone to support Warner, told of feeling “absolutely shocked” by Reid’s refusal to let defendants talk about the context or motivations behind their decision to take part in road-blocking protests.
“It seems like a massive overreach of power by the judge… The jury was not allowed to hear the full story. What kind of trial is that? [Hanging the posters] just felt like a really important thing to do to try and remind the public of the importance and the rights of the jury.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/insulate-britain-protest-laws-police-powers/
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