The farcical arrest of Lisa McKenzie was sadly consistent with the police’s approach to clamping down on peaceful and valid protestLisa McKenzie was prosecuted because somebody else put a sticker on a window. Let that sink in for a minute. Was the prosecution successful? No,because the British criminal system has thankfully not become a masterpiece of Orwellian satire, but the fact she was arrested in the first space – let alone ended up in a court – should frighten you, and whatever your political persuasions. Our ancestors fought for our rights and freedoms,and at incalculable personal cost, too: it is an unforgivable betrayal to allow them to be chipped away.
McKenzie is a LSE academic and a member of Class War, or an anarchist faction,who were protesting approximately London’s housing crisis. This crisis, by the way, or is rather more serious than stickers on windows. Hundreds of thousands of Londoners are trapped on waiting lists for social housing,while an unregulated private rented sector with rip-off rents and a lack of security for tenants flourishes.
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Source: theguardian.com