Protest is under threat – this is the latest step to limit our rights

Our right to protest should not be criminalised and yet last week nearly 200 people were arrested under coronavirus legislation at a protest in London, and a further 24 were arrested over the weekend in Manchester. These arrests are concerning but they’re part of a wider campaign by this Government to weaken and water down our right to protest.

Last week, on 5 November, new rules came into force which – for the second time this year – ban us from gathering in groups of more than two without a reasonable excuse. In this second version of lockdown, “reasonable excuse” includes explicit exceptions to allow numerous activities that were previously prohibited. Elite sports are allowed, schools and universities remain open, film and television recordings will go ahead.

Yet the Government took this chance to remove an exception in previous rules that made it clear that protesting was not a prohibited gathering. There has been no justification or explanation to support removing this, no evidence provided that outdoor protests in which participants follow public health guidance are a threat to efforts to suppress the virus. But the Home Secretary called on police to increase enforcement and within days it has resulted in over 200 arrests of people at protests.

Any move to criminalise protest would be extreme and potentially unlawful, and we urgently need the Government to clarify this right will be respected. This is critical when seen in the context of a long-term campaign to undermine this fundamental right.

Earlier this year, when people took to the streets to join Black Lives Matter in their call for racial justice and equality, the Home Secretary branded these protests illegal. Participants were subjected to the contentious police practice of kettling, held for hours on end, often into the early hours of the morning. In September, a trans rights advocacy group was forced to cancel a protest after the police told them it would breach coronavirus laws.

While the pandemic is being used to excuse, or even explain, this crackdown on protest, it’s not the whole picture. Last year, the Metropolitan Police unlawfully banned protest across London, and arrested over 1,000 people in the first eight days of Extinction Rebellion demonstrations. In correspondence with the Home Secretary, the Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said that these protests for action on climate change created “opportunities” to limit the right to protest.

Liberty has always supported proportionate measures to protect lives, but people must not be criminalised en masse for standing up for their beliefs, no matter what the cause and this remains true even in a pandemic.

Given the extent to which the Government is interfering with our rights and freedoms, while side-lining Parliament, it is as vital as ever that we are able to take to the streets to express dissent.

We should all be able to stand up for what we believe in. In a healthy democracy protest is one way we do that, and that’s why any attempt to block us is deeply worrying and should be treated with suspicion. In the context of a long-term campaign to deprive us of this right, trying to blanket ban protest is opportunistic, oppressive and dangerous.

The Government must urgently make clear it has no intention of using this pandemic to curtail our right to protest.

And the police must commit to uphold their duty to facilitate protest so we can stand up to power.