Protest is a fundamental democratic right, but today it’s in very real danger.
Last year Priti Patel branded Extinction Rebellion activists “criminals”. Her solution to the inconvenience of protest is the sinister Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, being debated in Parliament right now.
If passed, it will mean that most peaceful protests will become a crime.
Defend our rights
Noisy protests would be banned (for example, even singing could be outlawed) and someone damaging a slave-trader statue could get a longer prison sentence than a rapist.
Right now, Extinction Rebellion UK is standing alongside other peaceful movements, defending our right to protest.
The Government is directly harming the people, by perpetuating a system that doesn’t sufficiently tackle violence against women, allows covid-19 to disproportionately kill marginalised racial and ethnic groups and destroys the planet on which all life depends. Protest is all we have left.
Despite the chilling attempt to turn the UK into a police state, there is also cause for hope: history shows that when peaceful protest starts to work, the pillars of power try to shut it down. And this means we’re winning.
In this crucial year in which the UK hosts the G7 and COP26, the eyes of the world are on us. Help XRUK hold the government and media to account as we defend our right to protest – and our right to live.
Read the Joint Letter to the Home and Justice Secretaries, backed by 254 organisations