A DAMNING report warned today that crackdowns on the right to protest have become so severe they amount to state repression.

The State Of Protest report by the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) examined worrying developments over the last year.

It accuses the government and the police of implementing “an alarming package of state-supported measures designed to impose social control on protests on a scale reminiscent of the ‘war on terror’ two decades ago.”

It notes how new laws such as the Police Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 have criminalised campaign tactics, such as “locking on.”

But police also regularly use pre-existing powers, such as sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986, which give them power to impose conditions on public processions and assemblies.

Home Office data said the Metropolitan Police is “almost” the sole user of the clauses, the report said, with the force using them to disrupt marches and protests in central London.

Meanwhile there has been “sustained media and government pressure” on police to step in swiftly where protests pose any risk of “serious disruption,” the report said.

It highlighted that despite increased surveillance, police ignored far-right groups, with risk assessments downplaying the the threat of street violence just months before the 2024 summer riots, instead focusing on pro-Palestine and climate groups as serious risks to public order.

Netpol also warned about the use of new Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (anti-protest banning orders designed to target key individuals).

It also warned that police are increasingly making pre-emptive arrests, with members of groups such as Palestine Action and Just Stop Oil facing multiyear prison sentences for conspiracy charges.

It concluded that state bodies “are not only systematically failing to meet their obligations to protect and facilitate the right to freedom of assembly under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but are barely even considering them at all.”

Netpol campaigns co-ordinator Kevin Blowe said: “What we have seen — and what we have heard from protesters and organisers — is the severity of the crackdown on the right to protest finally tipping over into state repression. 

“We urgently call on protest groups and policy campaigners to push back against the drift towards repression before it grows even worse.”