"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.

  • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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    9 months ago

    Well that should put us back on track as a nation, practical solutions for our modern problems. What a relief.

  • Vendetta9076@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    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.

  • li10@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    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.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        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.

    • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      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

    • soviettaters@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      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.

      • Leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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        9 months ago

        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.

        • soviettaters@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago
          1. Kids shouldn’t be coerced into being gay.
          2. Yeah lobbying sucks I agree
          3. If people don’t want to have to work in prison then they shouldn’t commit crimes.
          • irmoz@reddthat.com
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            9 months ago

            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.

          • Restaldt@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            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

          • jmankman@lemmy.myserv.one
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            9 months ago

            For the crime of homelessness, you are sentenced to a just lifetime of servitude in a for-profit prison. So righteous.

      • li10@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago

        Pretty good if actually mattered.

        It’s a talking point that’s only upheld on political whim, which defeats the entire purpose of it.

      • spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        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.

  • Dran@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    It’s like they think V for Vendetta was a blueprint for how to run a utopia.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    9 months ago

    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!

  • fosstulate@iusearchlinux.fyi
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    9 months ago

    I’m sure there’ll be a carve-out to the mask prohibition. I mean, what if there’s protest action a minister/police department dislikes? They need a way for their agents to don confiscated Nazi paraphernalia before joining the event and poisoning it, while remaining unidentifiable as state actors.

  • illi@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    So if someone doesn’t want to get sick for being in a huge crowd, they get arrested? Truly genius.

  • Xavier@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    Hmm… I may be mistaken but can they not already arrest troublemakers, arsonists, violent/aggressive individuals and other sort of rioters/agitators with preexisting laws/bylaws/regulations ?

    On the other hand, I’m trying to see the silver lining here… perhaps this new law will make it difficult for agent provocateur¹ from operating without repercussions and anonymity unless the law specifically has a carve out for them (I wouldn’t be too surprised, but it would be another major blow to the resiliency of democracy in the United Kingdom).

    Source: Pentney, K. (2021). Licensed to kill…discourse? agents provocateurs and a purposive right to freedom of expression. Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, 39(3), 241-257

    • porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      Police discretion will already make an exception for them even it’s not explicitly carved out, there is no silver lining, it’s just more police state shit

    • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      You bring up a good point. What qualifies as a mask? Do fake beards and mustaches count? What about religious face coverings? What about people who have prosthetic noses? I have a feeling this is going to be a tricky one for them to enforce in any sort of reasonable way.

      • jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
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        9 months ago

        A big thing you can hide is the distance between your eyes. Cover one of them with hair or something and any FR tech won’t work as well. You could also have a bunch of infrared led’s on your hat or something then the camera wouldn’t see shit. There’s a video out there that’s an interview with an ex-CIA agent or something that talks about disguises and whatnot.

    • Leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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      9 months ago

      You’ve got to understand the ‘average’ British psyche at this point in history. The majority simply don’t care that people they see as troublemakers and/or scroungers are having their rights dismantled. They lack the empathy to give a shit for these people and they lack the foresight to see that it’ll be their rights gone one day too. What stirs the average british gammon off their collective arses these days is the rumour there might be an immigrant in a hotel somewhere or that a drag queen exists.

      • TengoDosVacas@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        You described all of the western world since the passing of the US’s 1996 Telecommunications Act which gave all the radical fascists free rein to spread nonstop fascist propaganda over thousands upon thousands of talk shows and now through the internet.

        The only reasonable response is violence.