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Wow, UK has lost freedom of speech

Ziggurat said:
You don't get that I'm not disputing the court's interpretation of the law. I am not claiming that their interpretation is wrong. Quite the reverse: I think their interpretation is correct.

Which is precisely the problem. The law has outlawed all forms of protest, INCLUDING thoughts. Which means they have criminalized certain thoughts. And that's what you still don't get. They have criminalized certain thoughts. Nothing you have said actually indicates I'm wrong about that. It's all been either justifications for outlawing thoughts, straw men, or this weird obsession with labels, as if labelling thoughts as a "protest" makes it something other than a thought. A thought which is done in protest is still a thought. And if you have criminalized that thought because it is a protest, you have still criminalized a thought. You have still created a thought crime.

This isn't complicated. Why are you still struggling to grasp that simple fact?
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Nope - it doesn't matter what your thoughts are - silently protesting is still protesting.
 
Darat said:
Nope - it doesn't matter what your thoughts are - silently protesting is still protesting.
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What's the difference between silently protesting and just standing there doing nothing?

Thoughts. You have still created a thought crime.
 
Ziggurat said:
What's the difference between silently protesting and just standing there doing nothing?
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When you blatantly tell people that you're protesting, it's no longer silent. When you give people a notification that you're going to do something illegal, then you show up and do it, then that's not really silent. When you're asked to move along, and you don't, then that's illegal. I would also bet dimes to donuts that there's a no loitering sign out front of the hospital as well (given the laws in place), so standing there doing nothing may very well also be illegal. Pretty standard stuff.
Ziggurat said:
Thoughts. You have still created a thought crime.
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No, you have a crime. That's it. I know you want this to be the hill you die on so bad, but you're just incorrect. For someone that gets so granular on other threads it almost seems like you have some form of bias with this.
 
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Ziggurat said:
What's the difference between silently protesting and just standing there doing nothing?

Thoughts. You have still created a thought crime.
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The announcement beforehand that you are going to do protest there of course. If a person says they are going to do a thing, then does it, there is no room for doubt as to what they are doing.

ETA - What plague311 posted first.
 
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Darat said:
I wouldn't say call it authoritarianism, by doing so you are pretty much saying any country that has laws to tell its citizens what hey can't do is authoritarianism.

I can agree with you that it is an overly broad solution to a problem.
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Such a policy is very authoritarian.

Im glad we agree it must be changed cuz it goes too far.
 
plague311 said:
When you blatantly tell people that you're protesting, it's no longer silent. When you give people a notification that you're going to do something illegal, then you show up and do it, then that's not really silent. When you're asked to move along, and you don't, then that's illegal. I would also bet dimes to donuts that there's a no loitering sign out front of the hospital as well (given the laws in place), so standing there doing nothing may very well also be illegal. Pretty standard stuff.


No, you have a crime. That's it. I know you want this to be the hill you die on so bad, but you're just incorrect. For someone that gets so granular on other threads it
almost seems like you have some form of bias with this.
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Well the thread was started for the express purpose of giving Americans a reason to bash the UK so.....
 
Steve said:
The announcement beforehand that you are going to do protest there of course. If a person says they are going to do a thing, then does it, there is no room for doubt as to what they are doing.
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How is this relevant? The issue is not and has never been conflicting claims about whether or not he was protesting. The issue is that his protest consisted of thoughts, and if you criminalize a protest that consists of thoughts, you have created a thought crime. It doesn't matter if you are RIGHT about what those thoughts are, criminalizing thoughts is still a really ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ bad idea.
 
plague311 said:
When you blatantly tell people that you're protesting, it's no longer silent.
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His email prior to the event was not a crime, and is not alleged to be a crime. Is it your contention that telling police what you're thinking in response to their question can constitute a crime? That it wouldn't even be a crime had he simply not said anything at all? Is that really your position?

Because that's not the position of the prosecution. The prosecution's position is that his response merely proved what he was thinking. It wasn't his response which constituted the crime.
plague311 said:
When you give people a notification that you're going to do something illegal, then you show up and do it, then that's not really silent.
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The doing it was silent. The emails beforehand were not illegal, did not constitute part of the protest, and did not occur within the controlled area.
plague311 said:
When you're asked to move along, and you don't, then that's illegal.
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The crime he was charged with wasn't refusal to obey a lawful order to move. The only relevance of his decision to not move is that this led the police to charge him for his silent protest rather than let the issue drop. Had he moved, that would not have made his silent prayer legal.
plague311 said:
I would also bet dimes to donuts that there's a no loitering sign out front of the hospital as well (given the laws in place), so standing there doing nothing may very well also be illegal.
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He was something like 50 meters away, and he was not charged with loitering. Even assuming a no loitering sign existed, it wouldn't matter, because he wasn't on their property. "No loitering" signs don't extend beyond your property, that's not how it works. So this is completely irrelevant.
 
Ziggurat said:
What's the difference between silently protesting and just standing there doing nothing?

Thoughts. You have still created a thought crime.
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Well one is a protest, one is not a protest..

The reason for the banning of even a silent protest is one of how humans behave. Walking past a large silent crowd can be very intimidating and frightening, I'd say it would be positive creepy for most of us regardless of what we are doing, it's unnatural human behaviour. Imagine if a protest group decided to space themselves along a street approximately a metre apart for 150 metres and remained absolutely silent and every time you went out to the shops you had to walk past these people, every worker in that area has to walk past them and so on. It would be like a scene from the Wickerman, I think that would for most people be incredibly frightening, more frightening then if 150 people were protesting in your street with chants and signs. And it wouldn't matter one iota what each of those people were thinking. Therefore silent protests are banned as are all other forms of protest.
 
Darat said:
Well one is a protest, one is not a protest..

The reason for the banning of even a silent protest is one of how humans behave. Walking past a large silent crowd can be very intimidating and frightening, I'd say it would be positive creepy for most of us regardless of what we are doing, it's unnatural human behaviour...
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◊◊◊◊ ing ridiculous. No jury on Earth would agree that a silent protest on a public sidewalk is soo intimidating and frightening that it must be made illegal and punishable by prison time and/or a fine.

Stop embracing authoritarianism.


EDIT- a jury in Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Afghanistan might agree.
 
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Ziggurat said:
How is this relevant? The issue is not and has never been conflicting claims about whether or not he was protesting. The issue is that his protest consisted of thoughts, and if you criminalize a protest that consists of thoughts, you have created a thought crime. It doesn't matter if you are RIGHT about what those thoughts are, criminalizing thoughts is still a really ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ bad idea.
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No that is your issue and yours alone. His protest consisted of standing a restricted space and announcing that before he did it. If he was not in that location he simply would not have been arrested regardless of what his thoughts were.
 
Steve said:
No that is your issue and yours alone. His protest consisted of standing a restricted space and announcing that before he did it. If he was not in that location he simply would not have been arrested regardless of what his thoughts were.
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When did his protest activity begin? When he began to pray silently on a public sidewalk.

The End.
 
Steve said:
No that is your issue and yours alone. His protest consisted of standing a restricted space and announcing that before he did it. If he was not in that location he simply would not have been arrested regardless of what his thoughts were.
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Your defense of criminalizing thoughts is that they're only criminal in certain locations.

Not much of a defense.
 
Hercules56 said:
When did his protest activity begin? When he began to pray silently on a public sidewalk.

The End.
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In this particular case it began when he announced his intention to challenge the law. That was an act of protest and the continuation of that protest activity eventually led to his arrest.

(Pedant that I am - I actually have no doubt that his protest activity began well before this particular event but that is not relevant to this particular case)
 
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