Last week the UN’s special rapporteur on environmental defenders, Michel Forst, issued the kind of bulletin you might expect to see written about the Sisi regime in Egypt or Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But it concerned the UK. It noted that draconian anti-protest laws, massive sentences and court rulings forbidding protesters from explaining their motives to juries are crushing “fundamental freedoms” here. He pointed out that until recently it was very rare “for members of the public to be imprisoned for peaceful protest in the UK”. Now you can get six months merely for marching.
I could say, don’t worry it is only in the UK, a snippet from the report- Link to United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
Michel Forst-UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention*
Visit to London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 10-12 January 2024
End of mission statement.
During my visit, however, I learned that, in the UK, peaceful protesters are being prosecuted and convicted under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, for the criminal offence of “public nuisance”, which is punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment. I was also informed that the Public Order Act 2023 is being used to further criminalize peaceful protest. In December 2023, a peaceful climate protester who took part for approximately 30 minutes in a slow march on a public road was sentenced to six months imprisonment under the 2023 law.
That case is currently on appeal, but it is important to highlight that, prior to these legislative developments, it had been almost unheard of since the 1930s for members of the public to be imprisoned for peaceful protest in the UK. I am therefore seriously concerned by these regressive new laws.
The UK is not alone in this
Europeans’ Right to Protest Under Threat -Link to Carnegie Europe
Restrictions on the Right to Peaceful Assembly
People in Europe took to the streets to protest for climate and racial justice and for the rights of women, LGBTQ communities, and workers. These protests were met with restrictions such as detentions, use of excessive force, and disruptions. Detentions of protesters were documented in at least sixteen EU countries, while the use of excessive force was recorded in at least ten EU states (see figure 1).1
Climate Activism Under Attack
Climate activism is under threat in many EU states too. Several climate change protests, often led by young people, were met with excessive force and detentions (see figure 2)
We allowed them under the threat of COVID-19 to take some necessary temporary measures, some of our “leaders” seem determined to make them permanent and use them for other issues.
George Monbiot’s final sentence: [to avoid any copyright issues I suggest reading the whole of his final paragraph].
The best measure of the health of a political system is who gets prosecuted.
The less egalitarian our societies become the more authoritarian they are.
I hope you find the links informative and interesting.
~A