“AWAY in a police car” echoed outside the Home Office on Wednesday as campaigners belted out renditions of Christmas carols, calling for the government to repeal draconian anti-protest laws.

Dressed in Christmas jumpers and Santa hats, carollers from Amnesty International UK, Greenpeace and Liberty sang festive songs including The Twelve Days of Protest and Silent Protest.

They then handed in a petition to the Home Office, calling on it to scrap protest restrictions introduced by previous governments, alongside a letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper demanding an urgent meeting to discuss the state of protest rights in Britain.

A series of repressive laws have made the right to protest increasingly hard to exercise.

They include the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which allows police to ban or restrict “unacceptable” protests, and the Public Order Act 2023 which criminalised protesters “locking on” and fastening themselves to each other or objects. 

Punitive jail terms handed out since their enactment include one Just Stop Oil protester being sentenced to six months for slow marching on a road for 30 minutes, while five others from the group received a combined 21 years for co-ordinating a non-violent action over Zoom. 

Researchers at the University of Bristol revealed on Wednesday that British police arrest environmental protesters at nearly three times the global average rate.

Amnesty International UK CEO Sacha Deshmukh said: “We are calling on the government to undo the very serious human rights damage done under previous governments by repealing draconian anti-protest laws introduced in recent years. 

“Peaceful protest is absolutely fundamental to a free and fair society, a right for which people have had to fight long and hard. 

“Without the right to protest, everyone’s ability to hold the powerful to account suffers.”

Liberty director Akiko Hart said: “Being able to protest isn’t a privilege, it is a hard-fought for right which the public overwhelmingly supports.

“But over recent years, successive governments have created a hostile environment for protesters, criminalising people who take to the streets to hold the powerful to account. 

“From Votes for Women to Pride, our society is better for the protests that have come before us. 

“We need a government that listens to, rather than punishes, those who speak out on important issues.”