"Protesters who wear masks could face arrest, up to a month in jail and a £1,000 fine under proposed measures that human rights campaigners claim are pandering to “culture war nonsense”.
Police in England and Wales will be given the power to arrest people if they are wearing face coverings at specific demonstrations, the Home Office has said."
Been a bad 18 months or so for privacy in the UK. Online Safety Bill passed, the right to take strike action curtailed, people in receipt of benefits (including disabled people) will soon (as from 2025) have their bank accounts open to the government, the right to protest curtailed and now this.
that has been forbidden in Germany for years
Of course it is, it’s fucking Germany.
Because Germany is here to set a good example right?
What did they do during covid ? Arrest both mask wearers and nonmaskers ?
To police, that’s a feature, not a bug.
Man its like the UK is an authoritarian shit hole or something. Y’all need weapons and resistance. And no, I’m not American before someone asks.
Curious, where are you from? I like it when people from other countries use y’all, especially when the apostrophe is in the right place 🙂
Jus’ so ya know, “y’all” pops up on my phone’s autocorrect. I wouldn’t reckon it’s all that reliable of a metric, so don’t go puttin’ too much faith in it.
Heh, I see what y’all did there…
Im Canadian which I’ll be the first to admit is basically American.
You guys better be careful. From what I’ve heard Canada and Australia aren’t exaclty shining beacons of freedom as of late. Love you both tho
Oh 100%. Shits pretty bad here at times. I’m moving out of country soon hopefully though.
This but unironically
No part of this was ironic I assure you.
I wonder where that energy was in the 852nd month of “two weeks to flatten the curve”. 🤔
These must be western values we keep hearing so much about.
Yeah we really need to step it up. Sadly we’ll never live up to the shining example of Tiananmen Square. Peak human rights!
Ah I was just kidding, you probably mean the ability for Soviets to assemble. Like that one time they all banded together to put an end to…the Soviet Union. In that case yes we have much to aspire to!
Wow what an amazing counterpoint you’ve mustered there.
likewise
God you’re obnoxious. You got a .txt file you’re pasting these completely unoriginal russian-bot-tier zingers from?
Regardless if the guy is pro-Russia or not, banning masks in protests is very much an authoritarian move.
Everyone less fascist than me is a russian bot
Average sh.ithead
Good luck enforcing this. I have a right to protest, and I also have an autoimmune disease that means I will wear a mask in public spaces on the advice of my doctor, especially when there’s a new strain of covid.
Look forward to many, many federal cases under the Americans with Disabilities Act, dipshits.
Americans with disabilities act in England? How does that work?
Yeah, I skimmed it, and read UK as US.
Sorry, I have dual citizenship and sometimes conflate the two. Deleted my comment as erroneous.
Antifa ain’t happy about that.
I see no hope for this country. Things are just getting worse and worse every year, how long can this keep going?
It’s pretty bad now, but I seriously worry what things will be like in 20 or so years.
People hate on the US all the time, but the first amendment is very unique when you consider how other countries are curtailing people’s right to protest, practice their religion, etc.
lol you Americans thinking your little piece of paper written centuries ago makes you better than other countries is cute.
Your country is not the beacon of freedom you pretend it is.
At least I’m allowed to defend myself. I was assaulted about two weeks ago and I’m pretty fucking thankful for that “little piece of paper”
So no other country is allowed to defend themselves?
You’ve never left your own country, have you?
Your comment reeks of bad faith argument
You’re avoiding my question.
Why would I engage when I know you’re not actually listening to me?
An argument that might carry weight if you weren’t setting up hotlines for people to snitch on anything or anyone vaguely LGBTQIA+, removing books from libraries, allowing huge orgs to buy political favour, enslaving people in for-profit prison systems etc etc etc.
- Kids shouldn’t be coerced into being gay.
- Yeah lobbying sucks I agree
- If people don’t want to have to work in prison then they shouldn’t commit crimes.
Kids aren’t being “coerced into being gay”. That’s a batshit statement right there.
Also, slavery is always bad. End of story. Putting any leeway in there is disgusting.
For the crime of homelessness, you are sentenced to a just lifetime of servitude in a for-profit prison. So righteous.
You aren’t very smart, are you?
Kids are not coerced in to being gay any more than geese are
Lobbying sucks
We are just ignoring the litany of false accusation and arrests of innocent people forced into modern legal slave labor?
Better hope you never piss off the wrong cop or can afford a good personally retained lawyer if you do
Pretty good if actually mattered.
It’s a talking point that’s only upheld on political whim, which defeats the entire purpose of it.
Tories on a any% speed run to the government from Children of Men, while the left is worried about which way Kier decides to lean that afternoon
World
FTFY
I lived in the UK not that long ago and I lived and live elsewhere in Europe.
It really is a bigger problem in the UK than most of Europe, probably because it apes the US so hard and somehow combines some of its worst shit with their very own local shit (classism, very low social mobility, entrenched ancient elites, post-imperial hangover and other) rather than combining qualities.
It’s mainly Anglon-Saxon countries that are speed running the rise of Fascism, not most of the World.
Never gets old how westerners see themselves as the world.
Climate change only affects westerners? Things are going badly for the world.
Climate change affects everyone, but that doesn’t mean it’s an unsolvable problem. In fact, at least one country is far along the path of mitigating it.
Climate change is not something any one country can mitigate. It’s going to take all of us - the world.
Sure, but some countries are leading the change and others are dragging all of us down https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/business/us-production-oil-reserves-crude/index.html
Why don’t you move there, tankie?
Oh wait…
Actively working on it dronie. It may surprise you, but learning a new language and uprooting your whole life to move to a different country is a difficult process.
You don’t say? I did that three times. You know what the first time the reason was? The very act that the definition I labelled you of was born out of. You might want to look it up.
And the other 194 countries?
Some are doing better than others, but emissions aren’t meaningfully improving in most other industrial countries.
As long as world powers are putting profit over everything, we are not going to “solve” climate change.
We know how to fix it. We won’t do it, because there is A LOT of money to be made by doing so.
Sure, capitalism needs to be abolished for humanity to thrive.
Right, because the massacre of Ughir in China, genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and attempted genocide of rural Burmese in Myanmar are all such good things. I also remember hearing that North Korea has finally locked down to the point where escape has been deemed impossible, and I don’t know what’s happening in South America or Africa currently, but I’m sure it isn’t all sunshine and roses there too. Oh yeah, isn’t South Korea having major societal issues right now as well? Something to do with women’s rights, if I remember correctly?
The Uyghur narrative is completely made up and has been debunked to death at this point. What Israel is doing in Gaza is directly enabled by the west. Likewise problems in Myanmar are also linked to US operations. Meanwhile, people are literally fleeing South Korea to the north at this point. South Korea is a direct product of western occupation. So yeah, much of the horrors going on in the world today can be traced directly to the western empire.
Completely uncalled for, they said nothing to suggest they thought that at all. Great job representing wherever the fuck you’re from by being totally insufferable.
you keep on seething there little buddy, it really suits you
Painful cringe
the only cringe is that you keep commenting here
Yall need to grab some pitchforks
Oi you got a loicence for that mask?
What’s aw 'is, den?
I do but ye cant see mi face on the loicence photo anyways
Hahaha
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Protesters who wear masks could face arrest, up to a month in jail and a £1,000 fine under proposed measures that human rights campaigners claim are pandering to “culture war nonsense”.
Police in England and Wales will be given the power to arrest people if they are wearing face coverings at specific demonstrations, the Home Office has said.
The move is in direct response to the four protesters being cleared of criminal damage after toppling a statute of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol in 2022 .
Ministers will also make climbing on war memorials a specific public order offence, carrying a three-month sentence and a £1,000 fine.
Shami Chakrabarti, the human rights lawyer and peer, said: “Should rape victims or refugees peacefully protesting really be punished for covering their faces to protect their identities?
The home secretary, James Cleverly, said that recent protests had seen “a small minority dedicated to causing damage and intimidating the law-abiding majority”.
The original article contains 681 words, the summary contains 158 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Hmm…I wonder which political spectrum the current government belongs to…
Fuck the Tories right, but I also don’t see Starmer opposing any of this.
That would mean taking a stance on an issue, which might alienate some voters somewhere.
Starmer is like like 1 cm left of rishi
A μm at best.
Exactly… (leaving both firmly on the right)
Vote none, and start organising (in your work place, in your community, in your own home inspiring your kids). If you still can’t see that the system is designed by the rich and powerful for the rich and powerful, you’re not paying any real attention (precisely why the media keeps society constantly looking at anything but how things are really run).
We need to abolish the establishments keeping us down, not continue to play their game by their rules and wonder why things never change…
You can vote as left as you can and still do whatever you are saying to do. Having ultraright nazi shits in power because you’re an internet idiot will not help you - in fact it will completely rob you of the chance to ever change anything. You dumb fucks will solve the world by not fucking voting, even if the game is rigged you don’t have to be the dumbest shit about it
Tell me you didn’t click the link without saying you didn’t click the link (hint: it literally tells people to vote).
Also tell me you buy in to the distraction propaganda without saying you buy in to the distraction propaganda (hint: having a red tie on while not opposing a single piece of fascist legislation makes you, at the very least, a fascist enabler, or in reality, simply another fascist just one who is better at hiding it)…You’re literally giving a live demonstration of why continuing to play within their rules leads nowhere but deepening the divide within the working class.
Blaming the people trapped in it, for the system keeping us all down, instead of those who created and benefit from it is one hell of a self destructive trick you’re doing for your overlords…
Either way, you’re an ableist piece of crap, licking a boot because you’ve simply grown too comfortable with the feeling of it rammed down your throat, you have no high ground here. ¯\(ツ)/¯
I’m not talking about the article, it’s about saying no. If I need to read the article that says yes when your link says no… I’m just sick of the onslaught of defetism online where a whole bunch of people have the idea they can just ignore reality and it’s all gona fix itself. But who cares right, will all be dead because of the climate wars so it’s all cool
I hate kier but not voting for Labour would be stupid, protest votes or non votes don’t count any the only people pushing that idiocy are the rich right wing because they don’t want you to vote against them
Everyone just thinks ‘oh look these people are too dumb, busy, or disconnected to vote oh well’
You can still resist and work against a system you voted for,
Whatever gets them votes. Actual conservatives would at least pretend to care about the economy.
Why? Conservatism is about preserving traditional values and traditional power structures not the economy.
If you actually care about the economy that means you care about progressing a more effective and efficient state for the benefit of the people. Afraid that makes you a progressive which the conservatives assure us they aren’t.
Conservatism is about preserving the status quo. (As opposed to reactionaries that want to restore the status quo ante)
Not necessarily the current status quo though. Just the status quo where they have the most power.
Well if they were conservative and cared about traditional values, they wouldnt have let in so many migrants.
What “traditional values” are you talking about?
We’re a nation of migrants; you don’t get to rewrite history because it makes you mad.
The first immigration law passed in this country was a process for naturalization; it doesn’t get more traditional than that.
The UK isn’t a nation of migrants, they are not America.
Man i am this close to just blocking the reddthat instance. I dunno why but too many chuds and bad, bad fucking takes crawl out from under there
Someone tell the 1066 Normans they were actually born in England.
Oh, and the Romans.
Oh, and the Saxons.
Oh you mean the guys who literally invaded? I don’t think you’re helping your case.
It’s like they think V for Vendetta was a blueprint for how to run a utopia.
Alan Moore was pretty prescient apparently
That’s a good word. I always love learning new words. Thank you!
You’re welcome! I do, too lol
I think it’s important to relate the latter part to the former - beyond the privacy issues with not being allowed to wear masks (and having our bank accounts invaded), there is also the health aspect, and disallowing masks is one sure fire way to keep disabled people from assembling, since, you know, we don’t want to get covid, being significantly more likely to die from it (not necessarily because of the illness, but because our lives are deemed less worth saving).
The lack of any mask mandates already excludes disabled people from so many public spaces, this is just another way to keep us (as well as others, you know, first they came for…) from fighting back. as they strip us of every last human right.
Not comparing, we have our own issues, but the US just said not wearing a mask in public is akin to not paying taxes or speeding - it’s still illegal and not free speech because it affects others.
I have never seen a cucked nation like the UK in the world before. u guys have no resistance what so ever ! the french should have bought you some freedoms a few centuries ago.
It’s not even that - the people this is directly affecting (for now) are the people who, if they raise their head above the parapet, it’ll get shot off - the people least able to protest. 95% of the country are not lacking resistance, they’re lacking empathy and foresight. They show plenty of resistance to media driven culture war bullshit like immigration and LGBTQIA+ issues.
Yet they can’t stop making fun of the French. Hahah le protests amirite?
😷
This is just the first step at making protests illegal.
The first step? They’ve been on this path for years
Yeah, no, we’re long past that point
https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/advice_information/pcsc-policing-act-protest-rights/
by decades
https://socialistworker.co.uk/reviews-and-culture/police-brutality-against-striking-miners-and-cover-ups-laid-bare
and centuries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_MassacreI think you mean the ninety first step.
