The leader of a flag campaign group has been arrested on suspicion of causing religiously and racially aggravated harassment.<\/p>\n
Ryan Bridge is the co-founder of Raise the Colours, which has put up hundreds of union and Saint George flags across England and attracted criticism for spreading anti-immigrant rhetoric. He was arrested on Tuesday and released on police bail the following day.<\/p>\n
In recent days, the Raise the Colours group has posted several videos of its members erecting flags in Oxfordshire. On Monday, Oxfordshire county council issued a legal notice banning the group from putting up flags, arguing it was an \u201cact of intimidation and division\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a video posted on Facebook after his release, Bridge said: \u201cI\u2019ve just been let out \u2013 18-and-a-half hours for a public order section 5 causing people alarm and distress. The world\u2019s gone mad.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe putting the flag up in my country is causing alarm and distress to certain members of the public. It\u2019s an absolute disgrace \u2026 we\u2019ve got to march on, we\u2019ve got to fight on. We\u2019ve got a fight on our hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said his bail conditions included a ban on visiting Oxfordshire.<\/p>\n
Thames Valley police confirmed that a 44-year-old male from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, was arrested at about 8.40pm on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the police said: \u201cLast week, Thames Valley police launched an investigation following reports of incidents of public order offences on Abingdon Road, Oxford.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers are investigating those public order offences and have arrested a 44-year-old man from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, on suspicion of causing racially and religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress. He has been released on police bail.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oxfordshire county council issued a formal legal notice to Raise the Colours on Monday to \u201cstop a specified activity\u201d in response to the group\u2019s \u201ccontinued placing of flags across Oxfordshire\u201d.<\/p>\n
The leader of the council, the Liberal Democrat councillor Liz Leffman, said the \u201cscale and persistence of this activity is affecting communities across Oxfordshire\u201d and residents have reported feeling \u201cdistressed, unwelcome and unsafe\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe widespread installation of flags by Raise the Colours is not a sign of patriotism. It is an act of intimidation and division that is having a real and damaging impact on our communities,\u201d Leffman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur teams removing the flags, together with residents who have challenged the individuals installing them, have been subject to abuse and threatening behaviour. This is totally unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council said it would consider all options, including civil and criminal proceedings, if the group did not comply with the letter.<\/p>\n
Raise the Colours has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The leader of a flag campaign group has been arrested on suspicion of causing religiously and racially aggravated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-509147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509147","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=509147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}