The Public Order Act will have a chilling effect on your civic freedoms – it must be repealed

The UK’s Public Order Act, which became law this month, imposes undue restrictions on the right to peaceful protest, writes the UN human rights chief Volker Türk

Today, Suffragettes carrying equipment and chains could be arrested for the offence of ‘being equipped to lock-on’ (AFP)

The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to human freedom, and its history in the United Kingdom is long, strong and honourable.

People resisted tyranny. They denounced slavery. They demanded an end to discrimination, to exploitation, and to the undue and arbitrary attempts to control people’s minds and bodies. They stood up and marched for freedom.

Think of the Abolitionist movement which ended the practice of abducting, buying and selling people across the British empire – and the independence movements which brought that empire to a close.