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Comment by troad | Hacker News Reader

> Political speech is very much protected in UK law

With "protected political speech" being defined as which flavour of the established, incompetent elite you prefer this year.

People have been arrested in the UK for holding blank signs within vicinity of Palestine marches. People have been arrested over protesting Charles' coronation. To say nothing of thousands of people arrested every year over tweets.

Political speech is basically criminalised in the UK at this point. This is not an establishment worth any of our respect.

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> arrested in the UK for holding blank signs within vicinity of Palestine marches.

Got a source on this one?

Supporting Palestine in the UK has never been illegal. Supporting the specific group "Palestine Action" has been as they were for a while a proscribed terrorist organisation due to what was (IMHO) some property crimes committed against defense contractors by some of their members. Totally wrong, and has now been struck down in the courts, but saying "you can't support palestine" is also wrong.

> Thousands of people arrested every year over tweets.

The source I saw on this one had clear examples of violent threats and calls to set buildings full of people on fire, so I'm not sure this is clear either.

They were breaking in and damaging US military

The group itself offered training courses on Ho to sabotage the U.K. military

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/palestine-ac...

I wonder what would happen in the US with such a group

They broke into an RAF base, and defaced/damaged UK military hardware (spraypaint on aircraft). This is a serious crime, but in no way does it meet any reasonable definition of terrorism. There are plenty of laws under which those responsible can be charged, it was a ridiculous overreach to use anti-terror laws.

More concerningly, prescribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation had a suppressive effect on lawful protest against the Israel-Gaza war, since any supporter of Palestine might be considered a member of Palestine Action and therefore, legally, a terrorist suspect.

> > arrested in the UK for holding blank signs within vicinity of Palestine marches.

> Got a source on this one?

Not quite arrested but the closest I can find is someone threatened with arrest if they wrote certain things on the blank sign:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/anti-monarch...

The UK Police seem to have switched to a policy of knowingly arresting people erroneously and then releasing them and apologising afterwards.

(At least it is just arresting people and releasing them rather than shooting them and then apologising afterwards whilst also exonerating the officers involved.)

The article does link to an incident in Russia where a protester was dragged away for holding up a blank sign.

You forgot the part where they are literally debating if to get rid of jury trials or not because the government didn't hire enough judges.

Worth pointing out the US has similar restrictions already. Why is the UK catching flak for discussing this?

Far right podcasters. The ones cheering people losing jobs and being jailed over quoting the US president

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/no-freedom-of-s...

Not quite. They're debating whether to get rid of some jury trials, only for trials that have an "either-way" decision and carry a sentence of less than 3 years.

Ref: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn5lxg2l0lqo

97% of trials in the UK don't have juries anyway.

The changes would mean instead of 3% having juries it would be down to 2.25%.

This would also be reviewed once the existing backlog has been seen to. "This means that currently a suspect being charged with an offence today may not reach trial until 2030."

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