exempt peaceful protesters who backed Palestine Action from prosecution.<\/a><\/p>\nHe said it was not in the public interest to prosecute non-violent individuals who expressed support for the organisation.<\/p>\n
However, the Solicitor General for Scotland Ruth Charteris rejected the request on behalf of Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the the demonstration in Edinburgh – one of a number of protests this weekend across the country over a range of issues – police put out a statement outlining how they handled such events.<\/p>\n
“Campaigning and demonstration are a legitimate, necessary and vital part of life,” it said.<\/p>\n
“We want to protect the rights of people who wish to peacefully protest and counter protest.”<\/p>\n
The force added that officers worked with groups to ensure they understood what could be done without breaking the law. <\/p>\n
“We are proud of our approach and feel it’s important to be clear on what becomes unlawful behaviour,” it added.<\/p>\n
“Abusive, threatening behaviour or activity intended to disrupt an event that poses a risk to safety is not legitimate protest.”<\/p>\n
The statement added that police were aware there had been a recent focus on the proscription of Palestine Action and stressed that decision had been taken by the UK government.<\/p>\n
“We know there are strong feelings towards the situation in Palestine and people continue to express their views about that through protest and demonstrations without breaking counter terrorism laws,” it said.<\/p>\n
“The key difference is showing support for Palestine Action Group as it is an offence under the Terrorism Act 2000 to be a member of a proscribed organisation or to invite or express support for them.<\/p>\n
“This includes wearing clothing or carrying any item in public in such a way as to arouse suspicion that they are a member of, or a supporter of, a proscribed organisation.”<\/p>\n
It added that any police response would be “proportionate” and they were grateful for the “ongoing support” of communities.<\/p>\n
There were also demonstrations outside the Scottish Parliament by anti-immigration campaigners and the group Stand Up to Racism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of people have ignored a police appeal not to show visible or vocal support for a banned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-119072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}