Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
As I posted this morning, a high court judge refused to rule on whether an event per se was a reasonable excuse or not. He asked the organisers and the police to agree together, a reasonable way forwards. The wording “reasonable excuse” in law is used precisely to provide leeway in unusual circumstances and to avoid criminalising behaviour unless it’s absolutely necessary to do so.
It was the police’s attempt to continue to pursue absolute prohibition that allowed things to get out of control. The organisers had dozens of crowd marshalls ready to assist, but they couldn’t do anything because the police threatened them with maximum fines as event organisers.
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Precisely. It *could* be argued that protesting to make things safer for a large percentage of the problem *is* a reasonable excuse to leave the house. Especially bearing in mind there is evidence that the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer had little effect on the Covid figures.
https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/24/black...ases-12899049/
Now, the Police were there to enforce the law. Fair enough. They are employed to do that. That does not mean the law is a good one. I'm not a lawyer, but from what I have read, there are a lot of laws our government has passed in the name of Covid that are at best dubious, and at worst, potentially illegal.
Beyond the fact that a large section of the population actually feels that we as a society are not doing nearly enough to protect them (which is a terrible reflection on us), what worries me about this is the government talking about making it an offence to cause a disturbance in a protest. Depending on how this is implemented, this could effectively remove our right to protest peacefully.
Let me explain that. While it is annoying to have to have a protest block roads or train tracks, or close off a major landmark, those protests tend to be the ones that have the most impact. Remember the BLM protests? Yes, they were annoying, but they got people talking about Racism, and started a dialog that will hopefully improve things. The Extinction Rebellion protest? Got people talking about Climate Change. Much as I think they are a good thing, how many online petitions have had a similar impact? Not saying protest needs to cause inconvenience to have an impact, but it can help.
Going back to this protest, I think the Met could have handled this a lot better. They gave permission, then withdraw it two days before the protest. Then it sounds like they went in very heavy handed against a bunch of women. At the very least that's not a good look considering the protest was triggered by a Metropolitan Police officer allegedly killing an innocent woman and hiding her body. Note: I say allegedly because at the time of writing, he has been charged, but not yet convicted.