More $cientology cult trouble
The Strathclyde police, apparently oblivious to the bad publicity their City of London counterparts recently brought upon themselves, ordered anti-Scientology protesters to take down banners accusing the sinister sci-fi organisation of being a cult.
They had received a complaint, you see. A spokeswoman said:
The word is not a breach of the peace in itself. However, in this case it was exacerbating the situation and our stance was that we had to remove that.
From a policing point of view, a balance has to be struck between the right to assemble and hold a meeting and other persons’ rights to go about their business or demonstrate without being obstructed or hindered.
Meanwhile, civil liberties campaign group Liberty are calling for a judicial review into the City of London police, who did almost exactly the same thing two weeks ago.
UPDATE: (12:16) It gets worse. Anti-scientology demonstrators in Birmingham have also been suppressed by the police. Four members of Birmingham Anonymous Rapid Reaction Force (BARRF) were issued with £50 fixed-penalty notices for handing out leaflets. According to Birmingham Anonymous they were also told that if they use the word cult on any of their signs they may be arrested.
What is going on here? The CPS specifically stated that the word “cult” was not abusive or insulting. Yet Strathclyde and West Midlands Police are again threatening to arrest people for using it. Where are they getting their orders from?
(Hat tip New Humanist Blog)
UPDATE: (June 3) James Hammerton raises an interesting point in the comments.
An interesting aspect of the incidents in London, Glasgow and Birmingham is that different laws have been applied in each case. In London it was the Public Order Act 1986, in Glasgow it was the Scots common-law offence of “breach of the peace†(a similar offence exists in English law too) and in Birmingham it’s the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 (in relation to leafleting) and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (in relation to the threat of arrest for using the word “cultâ€Â).
It looks very much like they are trying every legal means at their disposal to silence criticism, particularly regarding the “cult” label. This raises the question of what tactics they will resort to when all the legal ones have have failed.
Well, to be fair, if I may, in Birmingham City Centre one can be fined for handing out leaflets of *any* kind (e.g nightclub ads and other promotions) without having been given prior permission. So those fixed penalty notices may just be an instance of that. The fine in these cases can be up to £2500, so they might count themselves lucky.
Now, to stop being fair, it still does raise the question of who exactly encouraged people to hand out the fines, given that – as we all know – not everyone who drops litter is fined and not everyone handing out leaflets is fined. There is an element of discretion, and it could be tha discretion which needs looking into.
Perhaps someone needs to get arrested (not that I’m about to stick my head up!) in order that this gets a proper judicial review.
I know I keep saying this, but why pick on $cientology? Aren’t the CofE and the Catholic church just as bad? Aren’t they also cults by the same definition? They have killed countless numbers of people over the years and the Catholics in particular are responsible indirectly for the deaths of countless thousands more thought HIV/AIDS and overpopulation.
Most organised religion are cults by any other measure. If you pick on one, you surely MUSt pick on them all.
An interesting aspect of the incidents in London, Glasgow and Birmingham is that different laws have been applied in each case. In London it was the Public Order Act 1986, in Glasgow it was the Scots common-law offence of “breach of the peace” (a similar offence exists in English law too) and in Birmingham it’s the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 (in relation to leafleting) and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (in relation to the threat of arrest for using the word “cult”).
Note that the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 carries an explicit exemption for material distributed for a political purpose for a religion or a belief. ISTM the protesters’ leaflets should thus have been exempt according to the very law being cited against them. Note also that the Racial and Religous Hatred Act contains a clause explicitly protecting criticism and ridicule of religion. It thus seems to me there’s a prima facie case that the West Midlands Police are out of line on this.
Far better, if you ask me, would be to just self-censor the offending word and have:
Scientology is a cu*t
on the banner.
[…] of the information in this post came from MediaWatchWatch which carries a couple of interesting observations: n interesting aspect of the incidents in […]
@Chris. This is perfectly fair, but what about:
Islam is a Cu*t.
or
Christianity is a Cu*t.
Scientology is numb, sure, but it’s also new: and that’s the only thing that separates it from all the other established religions. It’s fashionable to take the piss out of scientologists, but when it comes down to figures MUSLIMS are killing a lot more people; as I suspect are Jews Christians right now.
We have to be careful where we direct our fire save for being hoisted by our own petard.
Scientologists appear to be more successful than other fairy-tale indoctrination cults in getting the police to do their dirty work. They need to be stopped.
I’ll go to the next demo in my cult t-shirt then!
[…] MediaWatchWatch reports that Birmingham police have threatened anti-Scientology protestors with arrest for using […]