From The Guardian

Ruling further erodes climate activists’ right to protest in England and Wales

The Guardian | Protest -

Court of appeal’s removal of ‘consent’ defence means defendants on trial for criminal damage can no longer use it

It took a matter of minutes in the court of appeal, where demonstrators were strangely absent, for the dial to shift once more on the rights of protest in England and Wales.

The decision taken on Monday by the court of appeal to, in effect, find in favour of the attorney general, the Conservative government’s premier legal officer, has removed a defence for climate protesters that had been available on the statute books since 1971.

Continue reading...

Climate protesters in England and Wales lose criminal damage defence

The Guardian | Protest -

Appeal court says defendants’ ‘beliefs and motivation’ do not constitute lawful excuse for damaging property

One of the last defences for climate protesters who commit criminal damage has been in effect removed by the court of appeal. The court said the “beliefs and motivation” of a defendant do not constitute lawful excuse for causing damage to a property.

The defence that a person honestly believes the owner of a property would have consented had they known the full circumstances of climate change has been used successfully over the last year by protesters.

Continue reading...

Suffragettes attacked Buckingham Palace. Now Camilla is paying tribute to them – and so should we | Diane Atkinson

The Guardian | Protest -

The brave, risky campaign for women’s right to vote has inspired activists for more than 100 years. Here’s what we can learn from them

I was both shocked and delighted when I read that at the Women of the World festival earlier this month, Queen Camilla held up two stones that had been hurled at the windows of Buckingham Palace in May 1914. The stones had been thrown by two women, and each carried a message on which the justification for their action was written. One of these messages was “Constitutional methods being ignored drive us to window smashing”; another was: “If a constitutional deputation is refused, we must present a stone message.”

The stones broke through the glass and probably landed on the carpet inside the palace. Rather than throwing them away, as we might have expected, King George V and Queen Mary instead seem to have chosen to keep at least two of the stones, perhaps as souvenirs or mementoes, which is how Camilla came to share them with us when she paid tribute to the women behind the protest. It was a brave move that ran the risk of criticism from conservatives and misogynists. Camilla spoke of the suffragettes’ ambition to “make this world a better place for women”. I don’t remember any other royal endorsing the actions of the women’s movement, especially one as provocative, controversial and risky as the Women’s Social and Political Union, which led the campaign for suffrage.

Diane Atkinson is a historian and the author of Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes

Continue reading...

Rule of law declining across EU, report warns

The Guardian | Protest -

Civil liberties network says in states where far-right parties influence power, rule-of-law deterioration risks becoming systemic

The rule of law is declining across the EU as governments continue to weaken legal and democratic checks and balances, a leading civil liberties network has said, highlighting in particular a sharp rise in restrictions on the right to protest.

Berlin-based Liberties said in its annual report, compiled with 37 rights groups in 19 countries, that in older democracies with mainstream parties in government, such as France, Germany and Belgium, challenges to the rule of law remained sporadic.

Continue reading...

Russians urged to disrupt final day of Vladimir Putin’s presidential election

The Guardian | Protest -

Voters told to swamp polling stations all at once and spoil ballots, after two days of dye attacks, fires and Ukrainian cross-border strikes

Critics of Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin regime have called for massive protests at Russian polling stations on Sunday, the final day of a presidential election that is guaranteed to cement his hardline rule.

The three-day vote has already been hit by Ukrainian bombardments and a series of incursions into Russian territory by anti-Putin sabotage groups. Early on Sunday, a drone attack caused a fire at a refinery at Slavyansk in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia, where officials said one person died of a heart attack, while two people died after drone strikes in the Russian city of Belgorod on Saturday, according to officials.

Continue reading...

Climate activists across Europe block access to North Sea oil infrastructure

The Guardian | Protest -

Blockades at facilities in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, with protests in Scotland and action expected in Denmark

Climate activists in four countries are blocking access to North Sea oil infrastructure as part of a coordinated pan-European civil disobedience protest.

Blockades have been taking place at oil and gas terminals, refineries and ports in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, in protest at the continued exploitation of North Sea fossil fuel deposits.

Continue reading...

The Guardian view on Gove and extremism: this definition is a problem, not a solution | Editorial

The Guardian | Protest -

The government’s new approach is not a serious effort to tackle rising hatred and division

It is never a good sign when a minister needs to spend as long talking about what a new policy doesn’t do as what it does. Much of Michael Gove’s Thursday was occupied with stressing the limits of the new extremism definition. It will not be statutory, the communities secretary pointed out. It will “in no way threaten” free speech. It will not be used against environmental groups. It would not be used in response to an individual comment, he added, responding to the inevitable questions that arose because the crackdown coincided with the Guardian’s revelation that one of the Conservatives’ top donors, Frank Hester, said in 2019 that Diane Abbott “should be shot”.

What the new measure will do, said Mr Gove, is help the fight against extremism. It won’t. Had community cohesion and tackling hatred truly been a priority, a full public consultation and proper engagement with faith groups would have been the right way forward. Instead came what the Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi described as a “divide and rule approach”.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

Edward Colston statue placed in quiet corner of Bristol museum

The Guardian | Protest -

As a result of consultation with local people, visitors must make deliberate choice to see toppled statue of slave trader

It is undoubtedly the most well-known artefact in Bristol’s waterside museum, but rather than being given a prominent position it has been tucked away in a modest case at the back of a first-floor gallery.

Finding the right setting in M Shed for the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston, which was pulled from a plinth in the city and thrown into the harbour during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, has been a delicate task.

Continue reading...

Michael Gove sets out new extremism definition for UK – video

The Guardian | Protest -

Michael Gove has set out a new definition of extremism, which he said would not affect gender critical campaigners, trans activists, or environment protest groups, but would help block funding to groups that ‘undermine democracy’.

In his opening statement, the levelling up secretary named organisations that he said were a cause for concern under the new definition. He named two he described as neo-Nazi: the British National Socialist Movement and Patriotic Alternative, and three that he associated with Islamism: Muslim Association of Britain, which he described as the British affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, Cage and Mend

Continue reading...

Hester’s remarks ‘horrific’ but not extremist, says Gove – UK politics live

The Guardian | Protest -

Communities secretary asked about Tory donor’s views says ‘an individual comment’ would not be enough to warrant scrutiny under new extremism rules

In his speech Keir Starmer has just confirmed that Labour would stop ticket touts buying up tickets for events and re-selling them at rip-off prices.

This is what Labour said about the plan in a news release this morning.

Reselling tickets for profit has already been banned in many countries, but under the Tories, fans have been let down.

Too often, genuine fans are missing out on getting tickets only to see those same tickets on secondary ticketing websites at far higher prices, making them unaffordable and putting them out of reach.

My first ever trip abroad was to Malta with the Croydon youth Philharmonic Orchestra. You will know that excitement you feel when you have an encounter with the arts that changes your life. Everyone in the room will know that the sense, I suppose, of being drawn into something that seems bigger than ourselves, of being truly moved by a piece of music, or painting, or a play …

Even now even now, listening to Beethoven or Brahms as I read the Sunday papers, takes the edge off some of the more uncomfortable stories.

Continue reading...

Solidarity and strategy: the forgotten lessons of truly effective protest

The Guardian | Protest -

Organising is a kind of alchemy: it turns alienation into connection, despair into dedication, and oppression into strength

‘Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers,” the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote in his 1777 essay Of the First Principles of Government. Centuries later, his observation still holds. Despite having numbers on our side, the vast majority of people continue to be dominated by a small subset of the population. Why?

Today, an oligarchic minority rules because they have extreme wealth. The 2022 World Inequality Report found that the richest 10% today take over 52% of all income, leaving the poorest half just 8.5%. The same year, the bottom half of US citizens, or more than 160 million people, held a mere 2% of the country’s total wealth. An upper class owns most of the land and capital, which allows them, in turn, to exert control over politics and pass on enormous fortunes to their offspring, effectively establishing a modern-day aristocracy.

Continue reading...

Ministers and officials to be banned from contact with groups labelled extremist

The Guardian | Protest -

New extremism definition to be published by Michael Gove is already being challenged by Muslim groups and experts

Ministers and civil servants will be banned from talking to or funding organisations that undermine “the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy”, under a new definition of extremism criticised by the government’s terror watchdog and Muslim community groups.

Michael Gove, the communities secretary, will tell MPs on Thursday that officials should consider whether a group maintains “public confidence in government” before working with it.

Continue reading...

Met to pay £10,000 to woman detained overnight after Sarah Everard vigil

The Guardian | Protest -

Jennifer Edmunds sued police, which have now settled after dropping charges relating to 2021 gathering on Clapham Common

The Metropolitan police has agreed to pay £10,000 in damages to a woman arrested at the Sarah Everard vigil in Clapham, her solicitors have said.

Jennifer Edmunds was detained overnight and charged with breaching Covid restrictions at the Clapham Common gathering on 13 March 2021, said Bhatt Murphy Solicitors.

Continue reading...

Extending extremism definition risks fuelling unlawful protest, warns Greenpeace UK

The Guardian | Protest -

Michael Gove told that cracking down on peaceful demonstrations creates space for less law-abiding protesters

Attempts by the government to capture more groups in its official definition of extremism risk fuelling the very extremism it claims to be trying to oppose, Greenpeace UK has said.

Ahead of an expected announcement by Michael Gove on Thursday, Areeba Hamid, joint executive director of the group, warned that shrinking the space for peaceful protesters in the UK would encourage others to go down the path of more destructive and unlawful forms of protest.

Continue reading...

Hair-plaiting for the Iranian resistance: Hoda Afshar’s best photograph

The Guardian | Protest -

‘This was inspired by a daily ritual in which female fighters in the mountains plait each other’s hair while chanting: “Woman, life, freedom.” It was a response to the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in Iran’

I was born in Tehran but have been living in Australia since 2007. This was taken as the uprisings in Iran were unfolding, following the 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Jina Amini, a Kurdish woman who was arrested by the country’s morality police, igniting protests. This image is part of a bigger series called In Turn, commissioned for A Curve Is a Broken Line, an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney last year. I wanted to use this platform to respond to what was happening, and what we saw in images emerging from Iran and circulating on social media. One motif was the act of plaiting hair, historically symbolising sisterhood, bonding and resistance. This tradition extends to the Kurdish women’s liberation movement, where as a daily ritual in the mountains, female fighters plait each other’s hair while chanting the slogan “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” – “Woman, Life, Freedom”. Amini’s Kurdish heritage sparked the Woman, Life, Freedom movement that followed her death, turning hair-plaiting into a symbol across Iran.

It was a female-led uprising. We were waking up every morning to news of deaths of protestors, but seeing the bravery of women – especially young ones – defying mandatory hijab laws gave us hope, as did men joining in the fight. But we were mourning too: people were dying for women’s rights. Despite the increasing strength of daily rallies, the regime’s violence escalated in tandem.

Continue reading...

Failure to insulate UK homes costing thousands of lives a year, says report

The Guardian | Protest -

Analysis finds 58 people have died due to cold homes every winter day since 2013 Tory pledge to ‘cut the green crap’

The government’s failure to insulate the UK’s cold and leaky homes is costing thousands of lives a year, according to analysis.

The report from Greenpeace reveals 58 people have died due to cold homes every day on average during the winter since David Cameron’s Conservative government decided to “cut the green crap” in 2013 – drastically slashing support for home insulation.

Continue reading...

Archbishops of Canterbury and York warn against new extremism definition

The Guardian | Protest -

Clerics say Michael Gove’s anti-extremism strategy risks targeting Muslims and may threaten freedom of speech and peaceful protest

The archbishops of Canterbury and York have joined the growing list of critics of the government’s new extremism definition, which they have warned risks “disproportionately targeting Muslim communities” and “driving us apart”.

Michael Gove will present his new counter-extremism strategy on Thursday, which he says will target organisations that undermine British democracy.

Continue reading...

Camilla lauds suffragette stones of ‘hope’ – and gets very own Barbie doll

The Guardian | Protest -

In speech as president of Women of the World festival, queen shows audience objects thrown at palace windows in 1914 protest

Two stones thrown at Buckingham Palace windows during a suffragette protest more than a century ago and saved for posterity represented “hope to the women who threw them”, Queen Camilla has told equality campaigners.

While some of the suffragette’s more destructive tactics could not be condoned today, Camilla said there was “sermon in the stones” that had cracked two window panes but were kept by the royal family.

Continue reading...

Swedish police forcibly remove Greta Thunberg from parliament entrance

The Guardian | Protest -

Thunberg and other activists dragged away from doorway they were obstructing in climate protest

Swedish police have forcibly removed Greta Thunberg and other climate activists after they blocked the entrance to the Swedish parliament for a second day.

Two officers lifted Thunberg and dragged her away before putting her down on the ground about 20 metres away from the door she had been obstructing.

Continue reading...

Our justice system failed the young Bristol protesters | Letters

The Guardian | Protest -

Family members of the young people sent to prison tell of the disproportionate sentences that were meted out and the devastating impact it has had on all their lives

Thank you to Tom Wall for keeping the story of the Bristol protest alive in his long read (‘It was so wrong’: why were so many people imprisoned over one protest in Bristol?, 5 March). I’m the mother of one of the young people convicted of riot at the “kill the bill” protest in March 2021. My son is currently in prison serving his sentence. He was 19 years old at the time of the protest. A bright university student with no protest experience and no criminal convictions, he had never before been in trouble with the police. He was assaulted by the police like many others, but later put on a wanted list, arrested and charged with riot. This has affected him severely, and he tried to kill himself shortly after.

He was dragged through the courts, which affected his mental health even further. He couldn’t face any more pressure and pleaded guilty. It’s hard to describe the effect it has had, and will have, on him and the whole family for the rest of our lives. But we are united and we will get through this. As for my son, we know he will achieve greatness after prison. He’s studying while inside and is determined not to give up. He has all the support he needs from family and friends.

Continue reading...

Pages