Palestine Action: Proscription and Protests Debate
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Josh Babarinde
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Palestine Action: Proscription and Protests
Josh Babarinde Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I urge the Minister to be a bit more succinct in his responses.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
Hundreds of peaceful protesters have been arrested this weekend in the name of national security, but in what way does a peaceful protester’s tactic of holding a banner compromise national security? If the aim of national security is fundamentally to ensure that we can live in a free society where our democratic freedoms are protected, can the Minister not see that the mass arrest of peaceful protesters is an authoritarian measure that undermines, not protects, those freedoms?
Dan Jarvis
I completely acknowledge that the concerns the hon. Member has expressed are entirely genuine and well-meaning. I hope he understands the importance that we attach to the rule of law. We do not think that people should be excepted from the rule of law because they are of a particular age, have a disability or have a particular professional background. That would be entirely unfair. Nobody is above the law. The police have a difficult job to do to police these protests. I gently say to him that the protests we saw over the weekend were not entirely peaceful, with 33 other arrests, including 17 for assaults on police officers. I hope that none of us wants to see that activity in our capital, or anywhere else for that matter.