Live data from Hacker News

Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

text.npr.org

281–290 of 693 posts

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#281
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not being arrested for poor taste. They're being arrested for their actions, not their beliefs. Is there some democracy somewhere which doesn't have a public nuisance/breaching the peace style law?

UK isn't a democracy it's a monarchy

It purports to be both a non-republican democracy and a monarchy.

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#282
post #116
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is that you can be arrested for saying something mean at a funeral. I prefer the American system.

I don't - my father's funeral is literally two weeks away. Some relatives that my mother doesn't get along with at all aren't invited - they've never been particularly close and it'll be healthier for everyone if they don't stir shit in a time of healing. This isn't a case of protestors being repeatedly ignored - the public discussion about the monarchy is unfolding in most media outlets right now and other forms of…

No post body was provided.

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like complaining that you will get arrested for having sex in the middle of the street, but sex in a film is somehow fine(surely it's because movie producers have money and are in cahoots with the government, and not for any other, more logical reason, like the fact that art forms, no matter how poor in taste, are protected by society).

The clip of the dog doing a Nazi salute was on YouTube, so by your logic, as they are both art forms in poor taste, they should both be protected. Not what happened though.

The mindset is alien to me. The idea that a person should be locked up for making a joke, but a corporation should have the right to do whatever it likes. It doesn't even seem like it's ever in question just stated like a fact that the wealthy and powerful should have more rights. Perhaps that's the British psyche of meek subservience to the ruling class.

The really funny thing is that poor pleb is branded a "fascist", while the powerful people who came after him are considered brave and valiant freedom fighters for doing so. I mean it would be funny if it wasn't terrifying and Orwellian.

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They aren’t being arrested for being anti-monarchy though. > They are being arrested for being rude about it. Got it. Arrested for poor taste. Hard to see the justification for that in a democracy?

Screeching profanities at a funeral march should be a minor crime. ...but perhaps more importantly, you should just be ashamed of your childish behaviour.

Someone was arrested for yelling "Who elected him?". Is that considered a profanity now?

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the UK. You get arrested for taking a plastic knife outside or making mean tweets.

Or indeed burning a model of the Grenfell Tower at a bonfire party https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/06/grenfell-bon...

72 people died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Why would you do anything apart from express sympathy to the families of the lost?

Why did you post that comment?

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#286
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a person from Northern Ireland, I'm not sure what holiday you're referring to. Closest I can think of is the 12th July, which is a holiday, but not one celebrating burning Catholics[0]. You might be referring to the bonfires that are lit on the 11th, but that's not a holiday. Aside from some small events in Scotland, the 12th July is not celebrated in the rest of the UK. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelf…

Is Guy Fawkes Day in November not a big thing in NI? It is in England, at least. Although the traditional burning of the effigy of Catholic dissident/terrorist Guy Fawkes is becoming less common and people just are more commonly just treating it as a general holiday.

No, we don't observe it at all, in either community. Halloween is bigger here, and observed by both main communities, it's probably close enough to 5th November that we've just ended up forgetting about Guy Fawkes.

Plus it's taught in school as an English event, and we have enough of our own history going on in the early 1600s.

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#287
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They are being arrested for being rude about it. Which is substantially worse. Rudeness is so subjective and context sensitive that it really shouldn't form the basis for arrests

As an American, it is hard for me to properly grasp the fact that the UK almost seems closer to Saudi Arabia than the US in this regard. It does not seem like having a "fuck imperialism" sign should ever get you arrested in a country that is supposedly one of the closest allies of the US.

> It does not seem like having a "fuck imperialism" sign should ever get you arrested in a country that is supposedly one of the closest allies of the US.

Hmmmm... /s?

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#288
post #9

They aren’t being arrested for being anti-monarchy though. They are being arrested for being rude about it. Was the fella on radio 4 who stated to the entire nation that ‘King Charles and his family should be put in a council house and that the Monarchy should be abolished’ arrested? No. If you are going to attend a funeral, any funeral, be it the Queen’s or anyone else’s and hurl abuse or hold up signs with obscenit…

> If you are going to attend a funeral, any funeral, be it the Queen’s or anyone else’s and hurl abuse or hold up signs with obscenities, you will be arrested.

The funeral hasn't happened yet, Google tells me it's on September 19, 6 days from now.

Re: Anti-royal protesters are being arrested in the U.K. as 'Not My King' tag grows

#289
No-one should be surprised by this. For years now in the UK, people have been being arrested, fined and even jailed for offences like this (including under one particularly egregious and vague law against “gross offence”).

Up until now, it had been people with, admittedly, rather unpleasant views. Perhaps that is why it had been ignored. But we’re now seeing why ignoring it is dangerous.

Post reply on HN