Amnesty UK Scotland and JRS Knowhow have launched a new guide to the Right to Protest in Scotland.
This online guide for activists in Scotland is designed to help you navigate the complex legal terminology and to ensure we all know what our right to protest means in reality.
It provides legally accurate and clear information about your rights.
The guide includes a question and answer format, covering commonly asked questions like:
- What protests are protected by law in Scotland?
- Do I need a permit to plan a protest?
- What are the considerations for migrants, visitors and international students participating in a protest?
This new guide also includes a section explaining how to access legal advice and gives you the opportunity to give JRS Knowhow feedback on how they can improve the guide.
The materials were created in response to a consultation which scoped out what type of resource people would find helpful and gathered frequently asked questions. Amnesty UK Scotland and JRS Knowhow worked with existing materials to tailor and adapt the resource to answer these questions. They also worked with colleagues across different organisations involved in protests to review the materials, as well as with a specialist protest lawyer.
JRS Knowhow’s Director Jen Ang, also responsible for strategy and development at JustRight Scotland:
“We believe that when people know their rights – and feel confident in exercising them when it counts – it makes our society, and democracy, stronger. Scotland has a proud history of using protest to protect rights and to make positive changes in society – including movements that have led to granting women the right to vote, ensuring fair pay and safe workplaces for employees, and creating greater equality for all.
The right to protest in Scotland is different in crucial ways to the right to protest elsewhere in the UK, and so we are delighted to have worked with Amnesty Scotland and our social enterprise, JRS Knowhow, to design this resource for activists, protesters, and the public – with the aim of making this information more widely available, and accessible.”
To access the full guide, please click here.
