Let us protest

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will crackdown on the right to protest. Here are some organisations and ways we can lobby against this bill.

What's happening?

What’s happening?

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is having its second reading in Parliament on 15 and 16 March 2021.

The bill amends the 1986 Public Order Act to give the police and the Home Secretary sweeping powers over our right to protest, criminalise Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and extend stop and search powers.

The new provisions will:

1. Allow the police to impose conditions such as start and finish times and maximum noise levels on static protests - including a single person protest; to include where noise causes a significant impact on those in the vicinity or serious disruption to the running of an organisation

2. Give the Home Secretary the power to define and give examples of “serious disruption to the life of the community” and “serious disruption to the activities of an organisation which are carried out in the vicinity of the procession/assembly/one-person protest”

Why should we be concerned?

These proposed changes to the law will allow the police to quash a protest if they think “the noise” generated from the demonstration is disrupting the “activities of an organisation” or has a “relevant impact on persons in the vicinity”.

In other words - if this bill is passed, it will impact our freedoms beyond the current pandemic. Being able to protest is a democratic right. More than 150 rights organisations have co-signed a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel and Justice Secretary Robert Buckland warning that the legislation would be “an attack on some of the most fundamental rights of citizens”.

Influencing Parliament and decision makers

Civil Rights Organisations

List of organisations defending our rights to protest and civil liberties.

  • Liberty challenges injustice defends freedom and campaigns to make sure everyone in the UK is treated fairly.

  • Netpol seeks to monitor public order, protest and street policing, and to challenge and resist policing which is excessive, discriminatory or threatens civil rights.

  • Big Brother Watch is a UK civil liberties campaign group fighting for a free future.

( Made with Carrd )