Police accused of ‘totalitarian crackdown’

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The chief executive of an anti-monarchy group who was arrested on the day of the King’s coronation has been released, after critics accused police of enforcing a “totalitarian crackdown.”

Graham Smith was released after nearly 16 hours in police custody, while the majority of his Republic colleagues continued to be held.

After emerging at around 11pm on Saturday, Mr Smith said there was “no longer a right to peaceful protest in the UK”.

“I have been told many times the monarch is there to defend our freedoms. Now our freedoms are under attack in his name,” he wrote on Twitter.

Some 52 protesters from anti-monarchy and environmental groups were arrested on the day of the coronation, in what they slammed as a “dystopian nightmare”.

The Metropolitan Police had said it would facilitate anti-monarchy demonstrations unless they contravened existing laws or new powers that came into force last week banning “locking-on” and causing “serious disruption”.

But members of the Republic campaign group were arrested on Saturday morning and saw hundreds of placards reading “Not My King” seized by the force, despite gaining police permission for a rally in Trafalgar Square.

The group said its chief executive Graham Smith and five organisers were still in custody hours after the coronation had finished, writing on Twitter: “We are not being given a reason. They will probably be released when the whole monarchy PR show is over.”

One of the protesters joining the Republic rally, 30-year-old Harry Stratton, said police had told him that anyone getting in the way of the coronation procession “might get shot at”.

“They said ‘slogans. chanting - go for it - but if you start saying Andrew and the sex stuff we will start arresting,” he told The Independent.

Members of Republic were among around 50 protesters arrested, including other anti-monarchists, supporters of Just Stop Oil.

Animal Rising said a number of its supporters were apprehended on Saturday while at a training session “miles away from the coronation”.

Nathan McGovern, spokesman for the campaign group, described the arrests as “nothing short of a totalitarian crackdown on free speech and all forms of dissent”.

Amnesty International UK was among the human rights groups raising alarm about the arrests, saying peaceful protest was “clearly protected” under international law, while a Human Rights watch official slammed “scenes you’d expect to see in Russia not the UK”.

The Metropolitan Police said a total of 52 arrests had been made as part of the policing operation around the coronation of King Charles III, codenamed Operation Golden Orb.

Of those, thirty-two were arrested “on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” - a new criminal offence created by a controversial package of protest powers that came into force last year.

They included the Republic protesters, members of Animal Rising who were conducting training several miles away, and supporters of Just Stop Oil.

While the environmental group has become known for blocking roads in disruptive protests, it said that on Saturday members “had no glue, paint or any plans to disrupt the coronation”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-b2333719.html