In any democracy the right to protest is a vital civil liberty that must be protected.

Many of the improvements to our lives (from voting, minimum income, safe working conditions, improvements in racial and gender equality, to mention just a few) came about through effective protests carried out by people expressing their dissatisfaction and unhappiness with the government and those with power.

The current Home Secretary and Government refuse to engage with the underlying reasons for the need to protest, instead accusing protesters of being hooligans or criminals.

Rather than listening to people’s concerns and addressing them, those in power have decided to try and outlaw protest and take away our rights of assembly with the proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

I regard this as yet another dangerous step towards a totalitarian, authoritarian State. We have to do all that we can to stop this Bill from becoming law and to remove from office all those who are trying to take our rights away from us.

We need to support initiatives such as the newly published Charter for Freedom of Assembly Rights. Such a charter would ensure that public assemblies are protected, in a society based on equality and non-discrimination, that especially protects its vulnerable and disabled members.

It would also ensure that protesters are individually rather than collectively responsible for their actions and not subject to surveillance and an invasion of their privacy. There would also be no financial burdens on organisers of peaceful protests, and there would be independent monitoring of the policing of protests.

We cannot allow the government, under the guise of protecting us from Covid 19, to instead make use of it as an opportunity to clamp down on human rights.

Angie Zelter, Knighton