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.
Hamid told the Guardian: “Cracking down on peaceful protest won’t help combat extremism, but risks fuelling it instead. The right to protest is the safety valve of a healthy democracy – it provides people with a space to express their dissent peacefully. When you make peaceful, legal protest off limits, you exclude peaceful, law-abiding protesters from the conversation, and give their space to people who are less concerned about peacefulness and legality.”
I mean, its fairly obvious that this is what they want to happen. The more people push back the more the lords OH— I mean erm….. MPs….. will use that to justify introducing more draconic laws.
Criminal justice bill (even so far back as the 90s), regulation of investigatory powers act and the new policing and sentencing acts are some of the most authoritarian legislature we have had in a long time.
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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.
Hamid told the Guardian: “Cracking down on peaceful protest won’t help combat extremism, but risks fuelling it instead. The right to protest is the safety valve of a healthy democracy – it provides people with a space to express their dissent peacefully. When you make peaceful, legal protest off limits, you exclude peaceful, law-abiding protesters from the conversation, and give their space to people who are less concerned about peacefulness and legality.”
I mean, its fairly obvious that this is what they want to happen. The more people push back the more the lords OH— I mean erm….. MPs….. will use that to justify introducing more draconic laws.
Criminal justice bill (even so far back as the 90s), regulation of investigatory powers act and the new policing and sentencing acts are some of the most authoritarian legislature we have had in a long time.