Where peaceful protest is a crime.
The week's news at a glance.
United Kingdom
George Monbiot
The Guardian
Being an offensive bigot shouldn’t be a crime, said George Monbiot in the London Guardian. Yet last week in Britain, a Christian activist faced charges for handing out leaflets denouncing homosexuality at a gay and lesbian festival. The charges of “abusive or threatening behavior” against Christian Voice leader Stephen Green were finally dropped, after it was determined that public order was not actually breached. But free speech may not fare so well next time, thanks to the “draconian laws propelled through a dozy Parliament by Tony Blair.” The Protection from Harassment Act of 1997, for example, allows the Crown to prosecute anyone causing a person “alarm or distress” on “at least two occasions.” The law was designed to protect people from stalkers, but it is “now used routinely against nonviolent protestors.” The Serious Organized Crime and Police Act of 2005 would be an “even more useful” law to invoke against Green, since its definition of harassment includes seeking “to persuade any person not to do something that he is entitled to do.” Our only solace is that the police, “fuddled like everyone else by the size and complexity of the act, have not yet grasped its full implications.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
5 fact-checked cartoons about Meta firing its fact checkers
Cartoons Artists take on playing chicken, information superhighway, and more
By The Week US Published
-
NCHIs: the controversy over non-crime hate incidents
The Explainer Is the policing of non-crime hate incidents an Orwellian outrage or an essential tool of modern law enforcement?
By The Week Staff Published
-
Islamic State: the terror group's second act
Talking Point Isis has carried out almost 700 attacks in Syria over the past year, according to one estimate
By The Week UK Published