Written evidence from Extinction Rebellion (PCS0369
This submission is on behalf of the Extinction Rebellion Legal team. Extinction Rebellion Activists will be directly impacted by this bill, and Extinction Rebellion was named in the government guidance released with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. As the legal team we have extensive knowledge of the current law used by the police to deal with protesters, and the impact the bill will have.
The current law effectively allows the police to deal with protests. They can already impose conditions on a protest, (section 12 and 14 of the public order act) that limit its time, location and the number of attendants. In October 2019 the police wrongfully and unlawfully applied a section 14 to the whole of London to prevent Extinction Rebellion protests across the city. This police decision was successfully judicially reviewed in Jones Vs Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (Source:https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Jones-Ors-v-Comm-of-Police- Approved-judgment.pdf ) . This has been pointed to as a reason as to why this bill is needed. However, if the police had correctly understood the law and applied it to this section 14, they would not have lost the judicial review. Section 12 and 14 when properly applied provide more than sufficient for powers to limit protests. Obstruction of the highway already provides police powers to deal with one person protests, and isn’t limited to the road, but includes grass verges and pavements. The police regularly use laws that were not intended to be used against protesters when they were written, to arrest activists, including Section 241 of Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, and Public Nuisance.
At direct action sites, such as HS2 or fracking sites, protesters routinely experience police and private security violence, harassment and aggression. For example, Not1More have documented over 400 incidents of violence, surveillance and harassment of peaceful protesters involved with environmental direct-action protests. (source: UK | Not 1 More) Widely ignored by mainstream media and politicians, the sometimes-daily violence against activists who dedicate their lives to protecting our environment, is shockingly abhorrent. This bill will enable the police to remove activists from direct actions sites much more easily, and therefore will likely increase the impunity with which they can commit violence.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have witnessed a growing crackdown on protest, including the dangerous policing of the Sarah Everard vigil, the issuing of exorbitant fines to people, the police deem to be protest organisers, the aggressive kettling of Black Lives Matter protesters during a pandemic and the suppression of a two-person protest about the inhumane conditions at Napier Barracks.
Black Lives Matter has raised serious and necessary debate about race. The Sarah Everard Vigil shone a spotlight on the 55,000 plus reported rape cases with less than 1,500 conviction rate and social norms that make it frightening to be a woman on the street after dark. Extinction Rebellion, within its first year, raised the climate debate to another level, prompted Governments, Parliament, councils, business and third sector organisations to declare a climate emergency, became an international movement, and had its third demand for a Citizens Assembly met by the government.
This government's own reaction to many of these protests shows that not only are these issues serious, but that the tactics used by activists to garner attention work to drive government action. They drive democracy forward, and therefore it is essential that the government and this bill recognise the fundamental need for protest and civil disobedience.
Recently a jury found 6 activist defendants not guilty of criminal damage, for an Extinction Rebellion action that happened at the Shell HQ in London. While this is only one incident, it clearly shows that when the public are given a chance to clearly hear activists’ motivations, they ultimately agree with their aims and methods of achieving those aims. This jury did not feel adversely affected by the activists, they felt sympathy with them.
The bill makes huge changes to public order legislation to allow police to criminalise anyone using civil disobedience and direct-action tactics. Conditions can now be placed on a protest, if it’s deemed ‘disruptive’, ‘annoying’ or due to noise. All protests entail noise, including music. The right to free expression is seriously under threat, if the state can dictate how much noise is too much noise. Disruption to private companies, many of whom are unregulated in a global free market, is a cornerstone of protest. Direct action at fracking sites, has led to fracking essentially being banned since 2019 in the UK. The activists involved caused disruption, but ultimately were vindicated by the 2019 decision.
Statistically the police target and harass Black and other marginalised activists at a higher rate than their white counterparts. In 2019, it was found Black people are 9.7 x more likely to be stopped and searched than white people (source: Stop and search up by almost a third in England and Wales | Stop and search | The Guardian) . The new powers proposed in the bill will inevitably affect marginalised activists more, limiting their right to assembly and freedom of expression at a greater rate. In a civil society this is hugely concerning, protest is very often the only way certain members of society can ever be heard, clearly demonstrated by the desperate protests of residents of Napier Barracks.
This bill seriously threatens the lives of young people, many of whom feel disenfranchised with the current political system, and do not see themselves represented in it. By seriously criminalising their right to assemble and freedom of expression, not only do the government risk further disenfranchising a whole generation but also harming their future, by preventing them access to work because of criminal records, associated with being a conscientious citizen.
If the government would put the time and energy it has put into rushing this bill through its first and second reading, into tackling issues such as climate change, racism and sexism, they may find that ordinary citizens feel less need to take part in the very acts they wish to criminalise.
17/05/2021