When you can just send in Plod to arrest anyone on any pretext whatever?
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/04/30/why-are-the-police-handcuffing-street-preachers/
According to news reports and his colleague’s own account of events, on 23 April he preached from the closing section of the book of Genesis, which contains the allegedly offensive statement:
‘So God created mankind in his own image… male and female he created them.’ Building off these verses, he spoke about marriage being between one man and one woman – a view once held by the vast majority of Brits and the law of the land until the very recent past.
Police officers surrounded Sherwood, took away his Bible, and pulled him off the streets for an alleged breach of Section 5 of the Public Order Act (which, incidentally, does not criminalise offence or insult).
He was detained, questioned about his views on sexual morality, and held overnight. After 21 hours, police released him ‘under investigation’.
The same story has been told on countless streets across Britain in the past decade. A person says something allegedly offensive, heavy-handed police intervene, the person is arrested, detained, released, and the CPS choose not to prosecute.
And – unless there is far more to this story than what is available in the footage or multiple accounts of the event – it is hard to imagine the CPS moving forward with a prosecution.
.......
So that’s that. Move on. Just be thankful not to be in jail.
I was consulting with me old mate Niemoeller's ghost about the nazis coming for you and about whom crocodiles eat last - he told me to watch what happens with our freedom loving mates and matesses when it's the right to preach [Hyde Park Corner] in question, when the topic is, say, Christianity.
He said to me, quite cynically methought - watch all these free speech lovers go deathly quiet.
The old cynic was of the opinion that they'll only defend you if it aligns with their own main concerns, a bit like feminazis failing to care about women in other countries, i.e. outside the sphere of their own power grab.
I hotly disagreed, saying that all my colleagues would defend any free speech at all, irrespective, providing it did not urge people to harm others.
He smiled and just said, 'Watch.'
James, quite so.
ReplyDeleteAnd it won't stop until they are stopped.
I suppose the question is what will it take for people in significant numbers to stop them? The evidence seems to suggest it will take a lot more than the rats are doing now.
It doesn't matter if there is no prosecution. The punishment is the humiliation of being arrested in public, and the inconvenience of being detained. Even though a person may be released without charge, their fingerprints, photograph, and DNA is now on file "in case of any future possible offences". Once the facial recognition system becomes nationwide, there will he no place to hide.
ReplyDeleteI am coming to the end of my life, and am grumpy enough not to give a monkey's, but it's my children, and their children that I fear for. What sort of dystopian future will they have?