Tag: protest

UK Using Terrorism Law To Silence Journalists, Protestors Who Commit ‘Speech Crimes’

British police and prosecutors are relying on a recently adopted “speech crime” provision in terrorism legislation to target journalists, commentators, activists, and protesters.

The crackdown accelerated after Israel launched its genocidal campaign against Palestinians following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Among the most well-known examples of this crackdown is the case of British-Syrian journalist and commentator Richard Medhurst. 

Medhurst, the son of two United Nations peacekeepers, was arrested on August 15 by counter-terrorism police after his plane landed at London’s Heathrow airport. He was due to participate in a panel at the Better Days Festival in Devon.

“Something in my gut told me something was up,” Medhurst told The Dissenter, because there was an “unusually long gap” after the plane stopped and the doors opened. 

The pilot said that they were waiting for a plane to move out of their spot, but this turned out to be false. “One of the flight attendants said, ‘can Richard Medhurst please come to the front of the plane?’ I was literally in the front row.”

Officers, who were not in uniform, initially refused to answer any questions as to who they were and what they wanted and declined to identify themselves. Police demanded to know where Medhurst’s bags were and then took him and his property away. After he was taken to a small room, he was searched, placed in double-lock handcuffs in a painful manner, and transferred to a police station.

Medhurst, who is a member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) as well as the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), is well-known for his coverage of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition case as well as his reporting on geopolitics as it relates to West Asia.

This is the first known example of British authorities invoking section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000 to justify arresting and interrogating a journalist, which was passed in 2019 as part of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act.

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Lime Scooter Unveils Dystopian Solution After Three Teens Arrested For Allegedly Vandalizing Pride Mural

Last week three teens were arrested after they left scooter marks on a pride mural.

Authorities arrested two minors and one adult for allegedly using the scooters to deface the mural, just one day after Lime Scooters were reintroduced to Spokane, Washington.

The popular electric scooter and bike rental service has since unveiled a new plan to prevent this from happening again in the future.

The 19-year-old used a Lime Scooter to leave tire marks on the mural and shouted “f**k you f****t” at a passerby, court documents said according to KHQ.

The Spokane Police Department (SPD) used surveillance footage from the intersection of Washington and Spokane Falls Boulevard to identify all the three suspects.

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Armed with traffic cones, protesters are immobilizing driverless cars

Two people dressed in dark colors and wearing masks dart into a busy street on a hill in San Francisco. One of them hauls a big orange traffic cone. They sprint toward a driverless car and quickly set the cone on the hood.

The vehicle’s side lights burst on and start flashing orange. And then, it sits there immobile.

“All right, looks good,” one of them says after making sure no one is inside. “Let’s get out of here.” They hop on e-bikes and pedal off.

All it takes to render the technology-packed self-driving car inoperable is a traffic cone. If all goes according to plan, it will stay there, frozen, until someone comes and removes it.

An anonymous activist group called Safe Street Rebel is responsible for this so-called coning incident and dozens of others over the past few months. The group’s goal is to incapacitate the driverless cars roaming San Francisco’s streets as a protest against the city being used as a testing ground for this emerging technology.

Over the past couple of years, driverless cars have become ubiquitous throughout San Francisco. It began with human safety drivers on board who were there to make sure everything ran smoothly. And then, many cars started operating with no humans at all.

They’re mostly run by Cruise, which is owned by GM, and Waymo, which is owned by Google parent company Alphabet. Both companies have poured billions of dollars into developing these autonomous vehicles. Neither Cruise nor Waymo responded to questions about why the cars can be disabled by traffic cones.

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Trudeau says he feels “serene and confident” over decision to freeze protesters’ bank accounts

In his testimony before the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC), Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to justify his use of the Emergencies Act to stop the Freedom Convoy protest by blacklisting and freezing the bank accounts of protesters supporting civil liberties.

Trudeau admitted that the protests were not violent but still insisted that he is “confident” with his decision to use a law that has never been used before to stop the protests.

“There was no loss of life. There was no serious violence. There hasn’t been a recurrence of these kinds of illegal occupations since then. I am absolutely serene and confident that I made the right choice in agreeing with the invocation,” Trudeau told the commission that is investigating whether the government’s decision to use the Emergencies Act was justifiable.

Trudeau said that the “responsibility of a prime minister is to make the tough calls and keep people safe.”

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Ottawa City Councillor requests lawsuit to seize GoFundMe funds raised for Canada’s Freedom Convoy

The public participation in online crowdfunding for public protests related to the Freedom Convoy taking place in Canada continues to be hit with roadblocks and is becoming a further threat to free expression and the right to protest.

After first having GoFundMe temporarily block the release of some of the funds that Canadians have donated to help support the livelihoods of the truckers taking place in the demonstration, GoFundMe began to pay out the funds, with the first payment of $1M in Canadian dollars being released, the campaign organizer tweeted on Friday.

However, the campaign has raised more than $7.3 million in Canadian dollars and those funds could now be at risk of being seized by the local government if some politicians get their way.

Mathieu Fleury, the Ottawa City Councillor of Rideau-Vanier Ward, has today announced his support for the government to launch a legal challenge to seize the remaining GoFundMe donations that had been collected online.

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Nova Scotia outlaws support on highway for ‘freedom’ truckers days after massive protest

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia made it illegal for people to gather along a highway ahead of the “Freedom Convoy” of truckers that made their way across the country in protest of vaccine mandates. 

The local government issued “a directive under the Emergency Management Act prohibiting protesters from blockading Highway 104 near the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border.”

The directive specifically states supporters of the Freedom Convoy and another protest, the Atlantic Hold the Line event, can’t gather along Highway 104, on the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border. The directive states that “allowing people to gather in those areas would put themselves and others at risk.”

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Justin Trudeau and family move to secret location as Canada trucker protests spark security fears, report says

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and his family have left their home in Ottawa for a secret location, the CBC reports, amid security concerns as thousands pour into the Canadian capital on Saturday in trucker convoys to protest vaccine mandates.

The PM’s office has said it will not comment on Mr Trudeau’s location for security reasons.

The Canadian Parliament’s Sergeant-at-Arms has warned that demonstrators could show up at the homes of officials, something Mr Trudeau knows well.

In 2020, a Canadian Armed Forces member carrying a gun rammed his vehicle into the gates of Rideau Hall, where the Trudeaus live, hoping to reach the prime minister.

Mr Trudeau has condemned the growing anti-mandate movement in the country as contrary to public health and Canadian values of kindness.

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