Responding to news that the Home Secretary is to hand police broader powers to tackle repeat protests, Tom Southerden, Amnesty International UK’s Law and Human Rights Director, said:

“The ‘new’ powers announced by the Home Secretary today are not new at all – they are a reheat of powers that the last Government tried to push through under regulations that the courts found to be unlawful.

“They bear no relation to yesterday’s Defend Our Juries protest, which was at a new location and was targeted at the Government over its draconian misuse of anti-terror laws.

“Is the Government seriously suggesting that people protesting its decisions should only be able to do that a limited number of times? If it is, it is a ludicrous proposal, and if not, this announcement is just a cynical attempt at looking tough. 

“Amnesty hopes that the Home Secretary’s threatened ‘review’ of the state of protest law in this country will take into account that there have been three anti-protest bills in as many years and that the Government is putting the fourth through Parliament as we speak.

“However, it seems that when clamping down on peaceful protest, this Government will always find yet another way to restrict this basic human right.”