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I've crossed swords with Mr J on occasions about environmental activism and the need to break laws. I've also cited apartheid and Mandela and Gandhi as prominent law-breakers. I get that this upsets people and makes them nervous and I also get that there are horrendous acts of law-breaking in the form of violent terrorism. I only endorse and condone peaceful acts of civil disobedience. This peaceful demonstration is often met with law-abiding officers with riot gear and batons becoming legally violent. Quite often against disabled and vulnerable people when it comes to fighting injustices against.....disabled and vulnerable people.
If people aren't prepared to challenge injustices by breaking laws and risking conviction and incarceration, who will do it?
Which is fair enough ( Ive been on protests in my younger years ), they know the risks, they face the consequences, but in this case they didnt, they were obviously guilty ( we can see that ) but the Jury decided it was acceptable because of the nature of the statue and the public opionion at the time ( which comes back to the question, was the nature of the statue on trial not the 4 who committed criminal damage
when i was kid we did protests against racism and fascism and sexism..but god forbid we take down a statue of a slave trader.
I respect your views and the wider debate about the law and verdict. I would just add that at least they were tried. Many have already said we do not know the full details of the court proceedings and newspaper reporting is notoriously bad at this. But something in the defence argument was enough to convince the jury by 11/1 that they were not guilty.
Several Conquistador statues in Colombia were attacked/toppled last year too.
They might not be getting away with their vandalism
Edward Colston statue case could be sent to appeal court:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-59909823
Let's face it, it was just an inanimate object celebrating an old white slave-trader. If that's not an afront on public decency and morality and warranting an act of vandalism then what is?
It's not like it was a clock or anything.