RIGHTS advocates have launched a campaign to overturn Tory legislation attacking the right to protest.
Liberty, formerly the National Council for Civil Liberties has condemned the government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 as part of a clear pattern in which the right to strike and the right to vote had also been attacked.
It has launched an online petition and is gathering signatures for a letter to Home Secretary James Cleverly calling on him to scrap the legislation.
Liberty director Akiko Hart said: “No matter where we live, our backgrounds, or who we vote for, we all want people in power to listen to our concerns and work to build a brighter future for us and our loved ones.
“But this government is clamping down on the ways we speak up on important issues. Most recently it has given the police dangerously broad powers to crack down on protests and arrest demonstrators.”
Ms Hart said Britain’s leaders are “criminalising protesters to hide from their own failings.”
“This is part of a clear pattern of shutting down the ways we can all hold them accountable for their actions,” she said.
“They have also created laws that stop workers from striking and block countless people from voting.”
Liberty accused the government of “criminalising anyone who takes to the streets for a cause they believe in — from racial justice campaigners to environmental activists to grieving families calling for answers and justice.”
It said that laws limiting the right to protest, to strike and to vote were “all designed to keep the government above serious public scrutiny.”
“This is outrageous — and we’re fighting back,” Liberty said. “These authoritarian anti-protest laws must be scrapped.”
The Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act 2022 gives more power to the police, criminal justice system and sentencing legislation and allows police to ban or restrict “unacceptable” protests.
The Public Order Act 2023 includes rules criminalising “locking on,” where protesters fasten themselves to each other or objects. It now carries a sentence of up to 51 weeks’ imprisonment.
