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Comment by silasdavis | Hacker News Reader

Indeed they were arrested and held for 16 hours on the basis of 'being equipped for locking on'. An newly created offence barely a week old.

They had cargo ties to hold their placards during transit. Of no practical use for locking on.

The metropolitan police has since says it 'regrets they were unable to join other protestors'.

Between this and the online safety bill there are some dreadful dacronian laws making it onto the statue books in the UK in recent months. Compounding other forms of monitoring and criminalising speech under hate and anti terror laws.

It definitely could happen here.

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Many people have a cavalier attitude about someone "being arrested" but it's actually the violent and comprehensive denial of all basic human rights, often done on a whim. We should be reserving such an extreme measure for people who represent a real and urgent threat of violence, and almost never otherwise. Our tolerance towards arrest as a routine procedure is, to me, baffling and unjustifiable.

Not quite. According to the protestors, they had ties that were supposedly going to be used to secure the placards to things as part of the protest (presumably to railings). Any tie that could be used to secure the pole on a placard to something could obviously be used by protestors to lock their own body to the same thing, and the Met are a bit twitchy about this due to having repeated problems with it over the last few years and especially months. (That's also why there's now a law allowing them to stop protestors before they lock themselves to things in the first place.)

Cable ties, luggage straps or string should be of no concern. They're very easily cut by the police, even if the person is uncooperative.

"Lock on" protesters have used things like bicycle locks and handcuffs to shackle themselves to railings or each other. These are difficult to cut without injuring the person, especially if they're not cooperating.

Here's the Public Order Act, rushed through and taking effect from 3 May, with the coronation on 6 May: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/15/enacted

I'd argue cable ties, straps and string aren't capable of causing "serious disruption", and I assume the police/prosecutor agree. It's very concerning that the police made the arrests anyway.

(I also disagree with the law, but I'm more concerned that the police abused it.)

Considering the Met have officially apologised and announced "regret" for the specific arrests that were allegedly for that reason, it's hard to care about that excuse any more.

The protestors arrested say a) they were reversible plastic straps (i.e. no use for human locking on at all), and b) they had discussed their plans with the official police liaison team who approved it all before the event, then the police on the ground refused to care about that nor tried to discuss with the liaison team while making the arrests.

There's also various clips going round, for example this police officer saying they "might" arrest people just for chanting "not my king". Which is just blatantly wrong, albeit possibly down to incompetent officers as much as bad policy (though bad policy seems likely). https://twitter.com/francesleach_/status/1654789805685854208...

They could do that on a regular basis though, arrest, release, say sorry, nothing to see.

They, in fact, do do it on a regular basis. See, for example, the multiple occasions on which they've arrested accredited journalists for covering Just Stop Oil protests, only to apologise a day or two later as if it's perfectly natural their officers didn't realise journalists are allowed to cover protests without being arrested.

Is there no recourse against wrongful arrest?

If an officer believes an arrest is lawful he can arrest you. Trying to prove he knew it wasn't lawful but did it anyway is very difficult.

>>Any tie that could be used to secure the pole on a placard to something could obviously be used by protestors to lock their own body to the same thing

Nonsense, all you need to tie a sign to a pole is a piece of string that wouldn't hold a human body. If they want to keep that legislation in it should be specific - things like handcuffs, heavy chains with padlocks.....even that I think is an overreach, but it would be better than whatever the law says now.

Exactly - if you take too broad a view, then the protesters having arms and fingers could be considered devices for 'locking on' to something.

Personally I think this has generated renewed interest and publicity for the republican movement, which means in a way, the protest has been a success due to the police action.

The law says there's an offence "attach themselves to another person, to an object or to land" — which could include holding hands — but for "being equipped" it needs to be an object: "A person commits an offence if they have an object with them in a place other than a dwelling with the intention that it may be used in the course of or in connection with the commission by any person of an offence under section 1(1) (offence of locking on)."

I'll not be at all surprised if later this year the Metropolitan Police arrest protesters from linking arms while surrounding a building or blocking a road.

I have seen them reported as luggage straps

> which turned out to be luggage straps.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/09/labour-says-...

Easily cut or removed in either case.

For the record I do not think locking on should be criminalised in general in the first place, much less for it to be preemptively policed based the discretion of some copper.

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