Police are criminalising opinions, say campaigners: The Times 11/05/2019

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/police-are-criminalising-opinions-say-campaigners-2w6bskfdj

Glad Gilligan is covering this.

I am so glad to hear people are taking action over this. Will be looking up the Fair Cop Campaign to see how I can get involved. Thanks for the link!

Are they criminalising opinions, or are they criminalising scientific facts?

Good point - but either is very, very scary.

Who would have thought that we would look to The Times to defend our right to free speech?!

And yet here we are.

Does anyone have a sharetoken?

They are not criminalising them. They are saying no crime has been committed. So the are doing whatever is the opposite to criminalising.

They only agree that no crime has been committed after harassing people, arresting them, etc.

Arresting on suspicion of what though? It's not that easy to just arrest people if no crime has been committed.

I am happy that this is being brought into the spotlight and discussed but I don't think people are necessarily being 'harrassed'. I mean you could just put the phone down on them or not answer the door. No crime committed = nothing they can do about it.

I actually feel a bit sorry for the police who have to enforce this, I was making friends with an officer last week and it’s a policy handed down from on high and she agreed when I said it was fucking scary.

whatever is the opposite to criminalising

Exonerating? I don't think so. They were going to monitor Harry the Owl and his wife's social media accounts after he made gender critical comments on Twitter.

This whole idea that upsetting anyone, anywhere, with words written on the internet (that are not specific violent threats) constitutes a "hate incident" that requires police intervention...it's just madness, isn't it? And enforced very, very, very unequally. We all know whose hurt feelings matter to the police investigating "hate incidents," and it's not those of female people. Just ask the women murdered after reporting their partners' legitimate violence--oh wait, we can't, because they are dead.

These are some deeply messed up policing priorities.

Meanwhile, Facebook says death threats aimed at feminists are perfectly acceptable.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3581090-Another-Facebook-group-advocating-the-murder-of-feminists

Share token

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-are-criminalising-opinions-say-campaigners-2w6bskfdj?shareToken=c910cb61437651b9a0b3d071efd7cf8b

They were going to monitor Harry the Owl and his wife's social media accounts after he made gender critical comments on Twitter.

So what? If you're not committing any crime they can monitor all they want and nothing will come of it.

Comments are very supportive of Harry & co.

Please see the new thread about a group started by Harry the Owl and others and also on twitter as @wearefaircop. Just launched

Thank you TimeLady

If you're not committing any crime they can monitor all they want and nothing will come of it

In a democracy, the police don't normally tell people they think are innocent that they're 'monitoring' them.

Harry's Fair Cop campaign

twitter.com/robjessel/status/1127308807607132160?s=21

”I don't think people are necessarily being 'harrassed'. I mean you could just put the phone down on them or not answer the door. No crime committed = nothing they can do about it.”

I disagree. Official contact from the police, criticising the actions you’ve taken and threatening to monitor your future activities is absolutely harassment.

If you haven’t broken the law, then the correct action for the police to take is to explain to the complainant that no crime has been committed. Then if they continue to complain without cause, the police should assess whether the complainant themselves is harassing the other party.

Good for Harry! The police have tried to intimidate him in to silence and it is fortunate that he isn't easily intimidated.

Fairenuff - I personally don't think the police should be trying to intimidate people who are not breaking any laws - by their own admission.

Talking about people taking offence, just in an FB row (it's as bad as twitter sometimes) and someone has 'taken offence' at some fact based evidence and links I shared and I just replied 'ok then'.

So pleased to read more great stuff from the Times again and all power to Harry, Kate, Caro and Glinner.

It started 20 years ago and they have been gradually eroding the freedom of what we are allowed to say to the point now where I would say this country is probably second to Germany in its tyrannical approach to censoring anything they consider un-PC.

Second to Germany in the Western world that is.