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Parliamentary committee: UK government should drop 'disproportionate' plan to ban noisy protests
According to BBC, a parliamentary committee has warned that the government should drop its "disproportionate" plan to ban noisy protests in England and Wales. UK government
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill would also introduce powers to deal with demonstrations involving only one person.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights said the legislation could undermine freedom of expression.
But the Home Office said it would not "impinge" on the right to protest.
Existing laws are out of date and "disruptive and dangerous tactics" have to be dealt with, BBC reported, citing a spokeswoman. UK government
The committee's chairwoman, former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, said the plans were "oppressive and wrong".
The bill says group protests should not be loud enough to cause "serious unease, alarm or distress" to people "in the vicinity".
A noise limit would also apply to a single person if they caused "serious disruption" or if they "may have a relevant impact on" people nearby. UK government
BBC reported that in a report highly critical of the bill, the committee, which advises MPs and peers on the compatibility of all government bills with human rights laws, called for "statutory protection" for the right to hold protests to be introduced.
The report also said the language used in the bill left an "excessive degree of judgement in the hands of a police officer".
And it described the proposed limits on single-person protests as "unprecedented".
This legislation comes after repeated city centre occupations by the Extinction Rebellion movement - and last year's toppling of the statue of a Bristol slave trader and municipal benefactor. UK government
