Petition to: Rishi Sunak – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Help ensure that our thoughts cannot be criminalised!
Help ensure that our thoughts cannot be criminalised!
Due in court for a thought?! We know free speech is already under threat, but the state has started prosecuting people for their silent prayers, too.
This must stop.
Adam Smith-Connor's court hearing is on November 16th. His “crime”? Bournemouth’s local authorities are taking the military veteran, husband, and father to court for “praying for his deceased son” [who lost his life at the hands of an abortion] within an abortion facility censorship zone.
Adam prayed silently and with his back to the facility.
In fact, if Adam had been praying about climate change or anything else, there would be no upcoming court date.
It wasn’t his actions that were unlawful but the contents of his thoughts, deemed as “express[ing] disapproval” of abortion.
He isn’t the first.
Ensuring that the Orwellian concept of ‘thought crime’ doesn’t become a reality, ADF UK supported Catholic priest Fr Sean Gough who was found “not guilty” after facing criminal charges for similar actions to Adam in a locally imposed buffer zone in Birmingham. Fr Sean was fully acquitted.
Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was also found “not guilty” on a previous occasion before she was arrested again. In September, West Midlands Police finally dropped their six-month investigation into her actions. They also issued an apology for the length of her ordeal.
But it will take more than an apology to protect free thought and speech.
As of now, five councils across the UK have active “buffer zones” or censorship zones banning prayer and offers of charitable help to women on the public streets near abortion facilities.
And sadly, in March, Parliament passed national censorship zone legislation, to be rolled out in January, which has been described as “the greatest attack on freedom and choice in the UK.”
The UK is becoming an international embarrassment due to these cases.
How can we, as a nation, champion human rights across the world and yet be the first Western country to criminalise thought and prayer?
Will you write to the Prime Minister to recognise the threat to freedom of thought and the slippery slope of allowing local authorities the power to create laws – without the oversight of Parliament?
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Petition to: Rishi Sunak – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Dear Prime Minister,
Freedom of thought is our most basic and precious of rights – and has long been recognised in British law and every major human rights document from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights onwards.
Yet this hard-fought-for right is under threat in the wake of recent criminal proceedings against Isabel Vaughan-Spruce (twice) and Fr Sean Gough, who were recently subjected to arrest and prosecution for the thoughts taking place in the privacy of their mind before being acquitted.
Adam Smith-Connor is the latest law-abiding citizen set to face court in November for silent prayer. For peacefully and briefly raising his thoughts to God in a public place where he was lawfully present.
Prime Minister, it is concerning that the legislative tool of choice that has allowed the creation of thoughtcrime is Public Spaces Protection Orders (“PSPOs”). These powers were introduced by the Conservative government to curb antisocial behaviour and force dog owners to pick up their dog waste.
However, local councils and police officers have reinterpreted and used these powers to arrest, interrogate, imprison, and prosecute people for no more than thinking specific thoughts about abortion. Antisocial behaviour “buffer zones” have quickly become thought and speech restricting “censorship zones”.
Any alteration of rights must be done through parliament, not through unaccountable and unelected council officials and police forces.
Prime Minister, today it’s pro-life views that offend the progressive social orthodoxy, tomorrow it could be gender-critical buffer zones. If the criminal law requires us to refrain from ‘offensive’ thoughts, then there is simply no logical endpoint and no protection for the most basic of rights.
Thought should never be buffered, censored or criminalised.
Will you act to protect our fundamental freedom of thought in the UK?
Petition to: Rishi Sunak – Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Dear Prime Minister,
Freedom of thought is our most basic and precious of rights – and has long been recognised in British law and every major human rights document from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights onwards.
Yet this hard-fought-for right is under threat in the wake of recent criminal proceedings against Isabel Vaughan-Spruce (twice) and Fr Sean Gough, who were recently subjected to arrest and prosecution for the thoughts taking place in the privacy of their mind before being acquitted.
Adam Smith-Connor is the latest law-abiding citizen set to face court in November for silent prayer. For peacefully and briefly raising his thoughts to God in a public place where he was lawfully present.
Prime Minister, it is concerning that the legislative tool of choice that has allowed the creation of thoughtcrime is Public Spaces Protection Orders (“PSPOs”). These powers were introduced by the Conservative government to curb antisocial behaviour and force dog owners to pick up their dog waste.
However, local councils and police officers have reinterpreted and used these powers to arrest, interrogate, imprison, and prosecute people for no more than thinking specific thoughts about abortion. Antisocial behaviour “buffer zones” have quickly become thought and speech restricting “censorship zones”.
Any alteration of rights must be done through parliament, not through unaccountable and unelected council officials and police forces.
Prime Minister, today it’s pro-life views that offend the progressive social orthodoxy, tomorrow it could be gender-critical buffer zones. If the criminal law requires us to refrain from ‘offensive’ thoughts, then there is simply no logical endpoint and no protection for the most basic of rights.
Thought should never be buffered, censored or criminalised.
Will you act to protect our fundamental freedom of thought in the UK?
