Rights and Security International’s Statement on the UK’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

17th March 2021

The UK’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will further silence the country’s marginalised communities, which already have a disproportionately small voice in power-wielding institutions, by needlessly restricting their right to protest. At Rights and Security International, we promote just and effective security that ensures our rights are protected; this includes the right to express our beliefs without fear of degrading treatment and excessive Government intervention.

Arbitrary restrictions like limiting noise and start and end times violate the principles of democracy we and many community groups work so hard to defend. While the Government has said it is taking active steps to ward off threats to security, solutions to pressing concerns about threats to safety, liberty and representation can only be developed if people can express these concerns without the fear of excessive use of power. Right now, women in the UK are taking to the streets to call for greater protections against the real, deadly problem of gender-based violence. As MP David Lammy has said, u201cThis is no time for the government to impose disproportionate controls on the right to protest.u201d

International human rights law guards our rights to expression and peaceful assembly, yet the UK Government is attempting to stifle fundamental freedoms and impose constraints on people’s ability to voice their fears about threats to their well-being. Concerns about u201cpublic orderu201d must not lead to oppression.

We ask UK MPs to reject the protest-related and other rights-violating provisions of this Bill.]