Tomorrow, 14 April, the Metropolitan police and CPS will prosecute five anti-fascists arrested on 1 June 2013 while trying to stop the British National party from marching on the Cenotaph. Police decided the anti-fascist protest was a "threat to public safety" and imposed a dispersal order under section 12 of the Public Order Act 1986; 59 people were arrested. A few months later 286 protesters against the English Defence League, which had declared its intention to march on a park named after Altab Ali, who was murdered in a racist attack, were arrested in Tower Hamlets.
In both cases those arrested were put on bail conditions banning them from attending future anti-fascist protests. Yet of the 345 arrested overall, only seven have been charged. In both cases these tactics appear designed not to safeguard the public, but to gather information on protesters and deter people from joining protest movements. UN special rapporteur Maina Kiai, for example, recently reported that the threshold for using section 12 and 14 was "too low" and presented a threat to the right to protest.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.
In both cases those arrested were put on bail conditions banning them from attending future anti-fascist protests. Yet of the 345 arrested overall, only seven have been charged. In both cases these tactics appear designed not to safeguard the public, but to gather information on protesters and deter people from joining protest movements. UN special rapporteur Maina Kiai, for example, recently reported that the threshold for using section 12 and 14 was "too low" and presented a threat to the right to protest.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.