Three police officers about to make an arrest

CAAT’s Media Coordinator arrested for wearing a kufiya in Whitehall

This is the dystopian, authoritarian country we now live in - one where you can end up sitting in a cell because the police believe you might protest.

On 9th October, CAAT’s Media Coordinator, Emily Apple, was stopped at a junction in Whitehall and arrested for breaching conditions imposed on a protest under S14 of the Public Order Act because the police believed she was planning to attend a protest, and because she demanded to know the reason why she was stopped when many other people were allowed to walk down the street unimpeded.

This is Emily’s description of what happened:

“I know why I was stopped. It’s because I was wearing a kufiya. I wasn’t protesting. I was wearing headphones, and just walking. But I was deliberately targeted. Other people walking through were ignored.

“I wanted to know why I’d been stopped. I wanted to know on what grounds the cop who stopped me believed he had reasonable suspicion that I was going to attend a protest. I wanted to know how it was even lawful for the police to stop and threaten me with arrest because I might protest.

“I just wanted an answer to a very simple question. I just wanted him to admit that I was stopped because of the scarf I was wearing. But he refused to admit it. Instead I was arrested, handcuffed behind my back for over three hours, and detained for ten hours in total. I was charged with the offence, and am in court on 24th November, and I have nerve damage from the cuffs. Not because of any action I had taken. But because I might protest. I committed the “crime” of wearing a kufiya and refusing to just accept what the police told me without an explanation of why it was lawful.

“But this is the dystopian, authoritarian country we now live in – one where you can end up sitting in a cell because the police believe you might protest.

“This is just one minor case. Netpol’s “This is Repression” report into protest policing in 2024 lays bare what campaigners on the streets are facing. Its 2025 report is likely to be even more damning. Meanwhile, police have now arrested over 2000 people, many elderly and/or disabled for terrorism offences for sitting peacefully holding signs opposing genocide and opposing the proscription of Palestine Action. When I was booked into custody, the sergeant asked whether it was for public order or terrorism. This is the new reality for protesters.

“It doesn’t stop there. Despite three years of a continued assault on our civil liberties, and successive pieces of legislation that introduced a range of sweeping draconian protest policing powers, our government is currently trying to bring in even more with the Crime and Policing Bill that is currently in the House of Lords. This includes giving the police powers to ban people wearing masks on protests, a ban on flares and a new offence of climbing on war memorials. Starmer’s government is now talking about introducing even more limits on our right to protest, including powers to ban repeated protests and banning certain chants.

“So it feels like a lot more of us are likely to spend increasingly more time banged up in cells – whether that’s for opposing a genocide, raising the alarm on the climate crisis or opposing the rising fascism on our streets. I made peace with this some time ago. Not in a calm accepting way, but in an angry spirit of resistance.

“Because we have to keep taking action. We have to keep taking to the streets. We cannot be intimidated and we will not back down.”

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