People have been arrested by the police as they shouted against the crown, the royals marched and carried anti-monarchy signs — and in one case, a blank sheet of paper. The police crackdown on such protests has raised questions about freedom of speech during this difficult time for the UK. On Twitter, the hashtag “NotMyKing” — after the slogan that appeared on the sign of a protester who was pulled over by police in London in a video on Monday — was trending early Tuesday. Lawmakers called on authorities to respect the rights of those who believe the queen’s death will herald the end of the monarchy. After the death of Queen Elizabeth, Britain faces questions and uncertainty “Nobody should be arrested for simply expressing republican views,” said Zarah Sultana, the opposition Labor Party member who represents Coventry South in parliament. “Extraordinary – and shocking – that’s all we have to say.” Reports of the arrests first surfaced on Sunday, when a document formally declaring Charles as king was read aloud in locations across the UK. In Oxford, Simon Hill, 45, was arrested after shouting “Who elected him?” as the proclamation was read. In a blog post describing the incident, Hill claimed police handcuffed him and didn’t tell him why he was being arrested. I was arrested today in #Oxford after expressing my opposition to the proclamation of ‘#CharlesIII’. Can we be arrested simply for expressing an opinion in public? I was arrested under the police bill passed earlier this year. This is an outrageous attack on democracy.#NotMyKing — Symon Hill (@SymonHill) September 11, 2022 Thames Valley Police confirmed to UK media that a “45-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a disturbance caused during the King Charles III County Proclamation ceremony in Oxford”. It said a man was later “taken into custody” and was cooperating with police as they “investigate a public order offence” – although Hill tweeted that he had not dealt with police since his initial arrest. In the UK, an arrest is more like a detention in the United States, however the people who are charged eventually he has to appear before a judge. In Edinburgh, a 22-year-old woman was arrested outside St. Giles, where the Queen was resting at the beginning of the week, for breach of the peace. He was photographed holding a sign that read a cruder version of the slogan, “Down with imperialism.” NEW: The 22-year-old woman arrested after holding up this anti-monarchy placard in St Giles’ Cathedral has now been charged “in relation to a breach of the peace”, @PoliceScotland confirms. He will appear at the Sheriff of Edinburgh at a later date. pic.twitter.com/gFdBkoISB6 — Darshna Soni (@darshnasoni) September 12, 2022 The woman was later charged under a section of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 that prohibits “threatening or abusive” behaviour, a defense group she works for said in a statement. Incidents like these highlight the gaps in the legal rights of protesters in the UK, Clive Stafford Smith, a civil rights lawyer and dual British-American citizen, told the Washington Post. “Despite the complacent publicity that this country is a free speech country, the British really don’t have free speech in the way Americans do,” he said. In Britain, the Treason Act 1848 made it a felony for anyone to commit acts intended to deprive the British sovereign of the “royal name of the Imperial Crown”. The act is not enforced today, Stafford Smith said, but “it’s still on the books.” Some police who have been cracking down on protesters in recent days may be enforcing the Public Order Act 1986 – “an incredibly vague law that says anything that might cause a public disturbance is left to the police to decide whether to arrest someone,” it added. The recent Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 has been heavily criticized for imposing restrictions on protests, although it is unclear if any of the protesters were charged under the act, as most of its provisions they do not apply to Scotland. Activist and lawyer Paul Powlesland said on Monday that he was in Parliament Square in London and “held up a blank piece of paper” when a police officer asked him for his information. The officer apparently said “that if I wrote ‘Not My King’ on it, he would arrest me under the Public Order Act because someone might be offended,” Powlesland wrote in a tweet. A brief clip of their interaction went viral on social media, prompting Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy to say in a statement on Monday: “We have [the public’s right to protest] clear to all officers involved in the emergency policing operation currently taking place and we will continue to do so.” Such incidents have been few and far between, as millions of people across the country gather for various events during the ten-day mourning period declared for the queen’s death. “The vast majority of interactions between officers and the public at this time have been positive as people came to the capital to mourn the loss of Her Late Majesty The Queen,” Caddy said. Some on social media, however, pointed to another form of censorship of anti-monarchist views – one based on peer pressure. In his blog post, Hill, the Oxford protester, said that when he shouted: “Who elected him?” among the crowd, “two or three people near me told me to shut up.” And in Edinburgh, when a 22-year-old man held back Prince Andrew as the procession carrying the Queen’s coffin made its way down the Royal Mile, videos emerged showing the protester being violently pushed to the ground and pushed by two men in the crowd before police pulled him away. far away. A Police Scotland spokesman told The Washington Post via email that a 22-year-old man was arrested and then “released on a bond to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff’s Office at a later date”. “Arresting people for shouting republican slogans, even if they do so in a deliberately crude and provocative way, is completely un-British,” said Daniel Hannan, a member of the House of Lords. “I worry that our police are becoming more authoritarian and – worse – that a section of the public is cheering them on.” “The right to dissent is never more important than in times of patriotic fervor,” George Monbiot, a British author and activist, tweeted on Tuesday.
