Monitoring desk
ISLAMABAD/LONDON: United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is likely to announce new proposals to clamp down on disruptive protests, broadening the scope of police powers to act to prevent disruptions.
In recent years, protests, usually over environmental issues, have resulted in shut down of large parts of central London, blocking traffic on key highways, and calls from police to have more powers to stop such unwanted disturbances.
Disruptive protests
The UK government has passed legislation in 2022 with a plan to go further with a new set of laws known as the Public Order Bill.
The proposed bill, published the previous year, is currently in the final stages of debate in parliament. It has drawn criticism from civil rights groups who say it was anti-democratic and gave police blanket power.
The UK government wanted to amend the proposed bill before it becomes law to broaden the legal definition of ‘serious disruption,’ and give police more flexibility and provide legal clarity on when the new powers should be used.
Sunak said that the right to protest had a fundamental principle of their democracy, but that was not absolute.
He said that they have not protests conducted by a small minority disrupting the lives of the public and it was not acceptable and they were going to bring it to an end.
The government said that the new laws if passed could mean police can shut down disruptive protests pre-emptively.
The bill already includes the creation of a criminal offense for those who seek to lock themselves to objects and buildings and allows courts to restrict the freedoms of some protesters to prevent them from causing disruption.
It builds on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, passed in the previous year, 2022, which sparked several large ‘kill a bill’ protests.
