Pre-emptive arrests, confinement by kettling and the gathering of personal data give police officers "excessive and disproportionate" control over public protests, a report by a coalition of police monitoring groups has warned.
The study by the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) is highly critical of tactics used by forces across the country to clamp down on what it says are freedoms of assembly and expression.
Based on evidence from court cases and eyewitness reports of police operations in 2010 and 2011, the study calls for a more tolerant approach towards processions and protests.
Netpol consists of an alliance of well-established activist groups, including Aldermaston Women's Peace Camp, the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities, Climate Camp Legal Team, FITwatch, Green & Black Cross, Legal Defence and Monitoring Group and the Newham Monitoring Project.
"The use of pre-emptive arrests is one of the most disturbing aspects of the policing of protest during [this] period," the report states. "The mere possibility of disruption to the royal wedding triggered the arrest of groups of prospective protesters who had committed no criminal acts.
"We believe that this power is frequently misused to obtain intelligence about individuals who have done nothing unlawful. Protest should not be equated with anti-social behaviour, and the use of such powers on political demonstrations should end."
Used together, the Netpol report concludes, the powers and strategies adopted by the police have allowed them "to exercise an excessive and disproportionate level of control over protest assemblies and processions".
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