Johann Hari: Your right to protest is under threat

[marmar]

from the Independent UK:



Johann Hari: Your right to protest is under threat
Friends have started to say something they have never said before: I'm too frightened to protest

Friday, 17 December 2010


So now we know. When our politicians complained over the past few decades, in a low, sad tone, that our young people were “too apathetic” and “disengaged”, it was a lie. A great flaring re-engagement of the young has take place this year. With overwhelmingly peaceful tactics, they are demanding policies that are supported by the majority of the British people – and our rulers are trying to truncheon, kettle and intimidate them back into apathy.

Here’s one example of the intimidation of peaceful protest by the young that is happening all over Britain. Nicky Wishart is a 12-year-old self-described “maths geek” who lives in the heart of David Cameron’s constituency. He was gutted when he found out his youth club was being shut down as part of the cuts: there’s nowhere else to hang out in his village. He was particularly outraged when he discovered online that Cameron had said, before the election, that he was “committed” to keeping youth clubs open. So he did the right thing. He organized a totally peaceful protest on Facebook outside Cameron’s constituency surgery. A few days later, the police arrived at his school. They hauled him out of his lessons, told him the anti-terrorism squad was monitoring him and threatened him with arrest.

The message to Nicky Wishart and his generation is very clear: don’t get any fancy ideas about being an engaged citizen. Go back to your X-Box and X-Factor, and leave politics to the millionaires in charge.

This slow constriction of the right to protest has been happening for decades now. Under New Labour, protesters outside parliament started to have to ask permission and suddenly found themselves prosecuted for “anti-social behaviour.” In 2009, a man who had committed no violence or threats at all died after being attacked by a police officer on the streets of London at a protest - and nobody has ever been punished. Now the Metropolitan Police’s instinctive response to any group of protesters is to surround them and ‘kettle’ – that is, arbitrarily imprison – them for up to ten hours in the freezing cold, with no food, water, or toilets. It doesn’t matter how peaceful you were. You are trapped. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-your-right-to-protest-is-under-threat-2162493.html

[DJ13]

1. K&......well I tried to R it

What kind of Democrat would unrec a thread about our eroding liberties?

[marmar]

3. Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

DU has more than its share of authoritarian types, sadly.

[Kennah]

2. In order ...

... to affect a timely halt to deterioriating conditions, and to ensure the common good, a state of emergency is declared for these territories by decree of The Right Honourable David Cameron, duly appointed representative of His Majesty, the King. By decree, according to martial law, the following statutes are temporarily amended: Right to assembly, suspended. Right to habeas corpus, suspended. Right to legal counsel, suspended. Right to verdict by a jury of peers, suspended. By decree, all persons found guilty of protesting, or aiding a person convicted of protesting, or associating with a person convicted of protesting, shall be sentenced to hang by the neck until dead.

[Leftist Agitator]

5. Did you have a past life as a British Parliamentarian?

Because if not, you certainly could have fooled me.

[rustydog]

4. Remember Bush's "Free Speech Zones?"

Our right to protest was attacked after Bush took the oath of office in 2001.