Target vandals – not legal protests
BEHOLD Mr Astrophel Sang, 19, who in June twice tried to set light to the Union Flag which adorns the Cenotaph, the national shrine to our war dead.
Luckily for him the flag conformed to EU safety rules and would not catch fire. His penalty is basically nothing at all – a two-year conditional discharge plus some costs.
At the time, he was taking part in a Black Lives Matter protest against the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis, in the USA. Quite why that impelled him to climb the Cenotaph, I am at a loss to say.
And his sentence contrasts sharply with that imposed on Charlie Gilmour, the Cambridge student who was sent to prison in 2011 for swinging on the Cenotaph flag.
His treatment is also very different from the handling of demonstrators against the Covid shutdown measures.
Now, there are undoubtedly some unpleasant people who attach themselves to these marches. But there are also plenty of normal, peaceable citizens. And I am increasingly disturbed by the aggressive, almost hostile, approach of the police to such marchers, as well as the tyrannical fines imposed on their organisers without any semblance of a trial.
I gave up protest marches decades ago, but I think the freedom to protest is vital. The dubious claim that such marches breach Covid regulations simply does not work for me.
If people turn violent, or damage memorials, the police should respond with all necessary force. But peaceful protests should be left alone, and treated with respect.