MPs urged to approve changes to police bill
‘This joint letter shows the strength of feeling that this bill is incompatible with our shared values of equality and justice.'
Eighty-one faith and belief leaders wrote jointly to MPs this week, ahead of final votes on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. As the Friend went to press, MPs debated the bill on 28 February in a process known as ‘Commons consideration of Lords amendments’.
The letter asked MPs to support the Lords amendments to part three of the bill, including removing the ability to put noise limits on protests. It also urged MPs to speak out against measures that remain unchanged in the bill, particularly those that will disproportionately affect marginalised communities.
Paul Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, said: ‘This joint letter shows the strength of feeling that this bill is incompatible with our shared values of equality and justice. It endangers our human rights and has no place in our democracy. We urge MPs to support amendments to mitigate its impact. We will hold them in the Light as they discuss these important issues.’
Mia Hasenson-Gross, executive director of René Cassin, the Jewish voice for human rights, said: ‘As the Policing bill returns to the Commons, communities of faith and belief must stand together to defend our rights to public worship and protest in the face of marginalisation. We cannot remain silent as our fundamental human rights to protest and raise our voices are stripped away. Nor will we stand idle while our Gypsy and Traveller friends, with whom we share a history of persecution in Europe, are criminalised and robbed of their culturally nomadic way of life.’
In the last debate in the House of Lords, on 17 January, peers removed the police’s ability to impose noise-based restrictions on protests, as well as two whole clauses from the bill.
These were Clause 57, which would have allowed police to impose restrictions on public assemblies, and Clause 62, which would have criminalised one-person protests.
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