The fact that they are all Abrahamic religions?
Just because they have different names for their god(s), doesn’t mean thay are not the same one.
I can’t tell if your post is serious, sorry 
Obviously I was too subtle, something I’m not often accused of 
For Christians, God is the trinity of Father, Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit. I really don’t think here is the place to expand on the doctrine of the trinity, but I’m sure you could look it up if you were interested.
For Muslims, Jesus is only a prophet.
So lumping both faiths together (you missed out Judaism) and suggest they worship the same god is a bit like white British people referring to non-white people as “coloured”.
(No offence taken, of course.)
None intended
But the fact remains that Judaism, Christianity and Islam originated in the same part of the world, from substantially the same mythology.
You mean the fact that it was a fudge dreamt up by some 3rd century synod to try to reconcile the fact that Christianity was a monotheist faith with at least two and possibly three gods?
Let’s get back to violence in French schools!
This article from a Hong Kong newspaper in 2018 would indicate that the problem is not new.
Police in schools were discussed nearly a decade ago. Had they been installed, yet more children would not have needlessly died.
One would expect formalised theology to develop with a change in practical understanding.
That’s likely true, but they shouldn’t be needed. Faith and secularism seem more commonly to violently clash in France than the UK. I wonder if it’s possible for de-escalation to happen, and those feeling the need for violent opposition to state values can be enabled to feel less threatened so they don’t contemplate physical resistance.
Not that I fully understand what is going on in France’s schools but from what I can see there is more than one issue.
Unfortunately, it seems that all grievances, addressed and unaddressed alike, are leading to violence by students. This is student upon student, not always students against the authorities.
One, a young girl in the southern city of Montpellier, is a 14-year-old girl named as Samara. She was placed in an artificial coma after she was beaten by a group shortly after leaving school by Muslim fellow students. She was beaten in the other students eyes she was not dressing modestly. A nice little bit of archaic ‘honour’ punishment on France soil.
The 15 year old boy on his way to music class in a Paris suburb was beaten to death.
I agree with you that
But I think that is not exactly what is going on.
What France is faced with are radicalised and increasingly agressive factions within the student population who are being led or independently attempting to assert different orthodox Muslim laws upon more secularised Muslim French citizens.
In addition to this there is the ongoing drug mafia situation and other socioeconomic challenges.
For France the dilemma is how to protect. Both the children and secular freedoms enshrined in French law.
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That was well put Susannah. My suggestion is that people are polarising, finding their identity in their culture and likely to a lesser extent in religion, because they feel the state wants to take that away.
I say this as an outsider looking from a considerable distance, recognising I may be wrong. But it does have echoes of when and where I grew up, where cultural walls were built in order to help retain identity against being rejected by the local culture people were living in.
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OK, I think I have read enough now.
That Birmingham Live article was very useful, as was a second article linked from the first covering the Public Space Protection order.
The background to this is years of protests around the clinic - which disturbed residents, clinic users and no doubt staff.
I am sure all will agree that the local residents deserve to go about their daily business unmolested and the clinic staff and users should really be allowed to go about their lawful activity. Perhaps the occasional protest but this was all the time.
There was a public consultation at which the residents were strongly in favour of restrictions, not just the police or council.
The area was clearly marked with the restricted area shown on maps.
Vaughan-Spruce is a long time anti-abortionist so undoubtedly knew of the restriction - indeed it was referred to as a “censorship zone” by the Alliance Defending Freedom in an article published online in (guessing, there’s no date given) 2023.
I have no doubt that she knew about the restriction and deliberately entered the area, she also said she was praying which (daft as it seems) was a proscribed activity - because of the tactics used by protesters previously. The police were also acting on a complaint, they hadn’t just happened by to arrest her.
I note that even after being acquitted once she returned.
Were the police heavy handed? - well, they do have to uphold the PSPO or it is worthless, Vaughan-Spruce was being provocative (though in a pretty passive sort of way), and the behaviour she was engaging in had been found to be intimidating and disturbing to residents over many years. So this is not the police randomly telling people they can’t pray in public - far from it.
Were the magistrates right to drop the charges. Probably yes, given the circumstances.
This isn’t general censorship though. Much as I support the right to protest, and protests have to be at least a bit disruptive or they aren’t effective, neither should they cause daily disruption to innocent bystanders. That’s the thing about societies - we have to balance the rights of each individual when they infringe someone elses. My freedom to roam, for example, does not allow me to roam into your living room and nick your TV.
So I have to say that neither of NotALot’s examples hold up - Islamists displaying “death to the infidel” posters were not allowed to get away scott free and the “Christian arrested for praying” was a) contravening a specific order set up to protect people going about their daily (lawful) business and b) ould have been arrested whether she was Christian, Muslim, Jew or follower of any other religion had they been in that space protesting the abortion clinic.
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Throughout this debate, there’s been hardly any mention of the unfortunate young women who are the clinics’ clients. They’re already in a very bad place mentally and then they’re having to run the gauntlet of shit from militant Christian demonstrators.
I’d assume that if one believed in the power of prayer, one would assume that, unlike a cell phone, successful transmission of message isn’t dependent on proximity to the transmission station. In fact a believer normally doesn’t even think of distance. In other words, despite presumably believing that her prayers would reach their destination, no matter from where they originated, she continued to display and despatch from a place from which she’d been banned and which constituted harassment of vulnerable and distressed young women.
In other words her primary form of protest wasn’t praying, it was illegally demonstrating.
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Someone sometimes standing somewhere is causing “daily disruption”?
It would only have been illegal if the Order was lawful. Unfortunately we don’t have the CPS’s reasoning for dropping the prosecution (it was them, not the bench), but there are only two possibilities: that there was insufficient evidence, or a prosecution was not in the public interest.
I think it overwhelmingly more likely - because of the way s. 59 was drafted - that the evidential part of the test was not met. You’ve had a chance to read the provision. It would be an unusually draconian thing to prohibit someone from doing nothing but standing somewhere, and would certainly have fallen foul of the ECHR.
I do agree with you, Mark, about running the gauntlet (I mentioned that above. I think it’s unloving and a betrayal of what we’re told to do) and about the power of prayer. But (unless you are going to tell me you believe in the power of prayer :hallelujah:) you would have to concede that someone standing somewhere and showing no outward manifestation of what she was doing - and, one presumes, someone not known to the women seeking abortions - is not demonstrating, indeed is not demonstrating anything.
I do understand your points of view, in particular that you feel uncomfortable in applying to a Christian the rules you’d apply to any other type of protestor, but it seems to be inconsistent and irrational.
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If she really believed in the power of prayer, why should she need to bother demonstrating no matter however how peacefully outside the clinic. Seems to me there’s a bit of conflict between the metaphysical and the temporal.
Actually I’d argue that you’re projecting, because I’m not in the least ‘uncomfortable’ (far too thick skinned for that) but if we rule out metaphysics (as is legally preferable in a modern secular society) I simply believe that the same rules should apply to all citizens. We’re not living in Iran or mediaeval Spain!
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Please stop taking a mix ‘n’ match approach to this discussion - no, Vaughan-Spruce standing there a couple of times was not "daily disruption” - literally years of demonstration by protesters was significant disruption to the lives of those that lived and worked locally or used or worked at the clinic, that was the basis for the PSPO, not Vaughan-Spruce’s behaviour - unless she was one of the original protesters (quite likely I suspect but I can’t find a reference).
Oh, this is a new one. Why would it not be lawful?
So why admit to praying? If she was not engaging in protest (silent though it might have been) why not simply say she was thinking about that week’s shopping - she deliberately chose to say she was praying, presumably to force the police to take action (no doubt so that the protest could be escalated to the courts/media).
As I said - taken in the abstract it does sound a bit odd that “praying” was one of the banned activities, but you have to see that in the context of the behaviour of the protesters that ultimately led to the PSPO.
The context is all important, as I suspected all along.
Oh and “thoughtcrime” does not and cannot exist - even in the DPRK if you keep your thoughts completely to yourself there is nothing the authorities can do about it.
I’m sorry we’ve fallen out about this. I’m sure it’s my fault, and it’s a shame because it’s a really interesting case (for different reasons to those initially).
We all agree that thought crime (apart from conspiracy) should not be prosecuted.
The problem in this case does not relate to what Vaughan-Spruce did - I think it was reasonable to be present to pray, as long as she did no harm, while conceding what @DrMarkH says - but the Order which was obtained.
The Order prohibited various things: interfering or attempting to interfere with, harassing, intimidating, or recording or photographing a service user, visitor or member of staff of the abortion clinic; protesting using graphic, verbal or written means, counselling. I think we’d all agree that this would address the harm that the Council wanted to protect people from.
But the order also purported to prohibit her from praying. We know she admitted to doing that. (I think such a prohibition would be likely to breach the ECHR protection of freedom of religion.)
But - fatally - the point is that the Order purported to prohibit her from doing something of which no-one could be aware, something which was entirely indiscernable or invisible!
(Edited while @David_Spardo was preparing his reply.)
I agree, if this person was standing there silent, motionless, blocking no-ones exit or entry to anywhere, it is outrageous that she should be moved on, let alone arrested. I am pleased that the case did not proceed to court, though I think that if it did, it would have been thrown out with little ado.
Edit:
(Edited while @David_Spardo was preparing his reply.)
Yes, I did take some time, pondering on the right words, at one point, unhappy with the spelling of one word I realised that I had lapsed into French. 
Actually I think that there is a comment somewhere that had she “just been standing there” she would not have been arrested, but she had to add that she was “praying in her head” making sure that the officers knew that she was in violation of the word of the PSPO. She also refused to leave the area (though they put it as accompany them to the station) leaving arrest as the only option.
Also, I suspect you have never been a young woman seeking an abortion and already feeling guilty - I haven’t either but I can imagine that (as @DrMarkH says) in a situation which is probably making that woman feel extremely vulnerable a well known anti-abortion protester “just standing there” is actually pretty intimidating.
Well, I don’t feel we’ve fallen out - perhaps you do. We probably have unreconcilable views on the subject though, but that should not prevent civil discussion of the issue.
Actually, I don’t think that it really sought to do that.
If you read the article which describes the PSPO it is clear that overtly “praying” was one of the intimidatory tactics used - I very much doubt this was genuinely out of concern for the service users or their unborn foetuses and was purely used to increase the pressure and guilt that the women were already feeling. As noted above if you believe in the power of prayer proximity to the “prayed for” is not part of the equation. the protesters could have just as effectively gathered in the nearest church of the appropriate denomination - I believe there is a Catholic church close by - and offered up their silent prayer without upsetting anyone.
Perhaps, as you say, the order was badly worded - “acting as though in prayer” might have been a better activity to proscribe.
Nevertheless it seems Vaughan-Spruce was happy to try to use the wording of the order against it - “arrested for praying” being much more contentious than the more accurate “arrested for violating a Public Space Protection Order”. I have no doubt she would have been even more pleased with “convicted for…” but fortunately someone saw either the unprovability of the charge or realised how it would look and declined to make her a martyr to the cause. Having failed once to get the headline she craved, she had another go.
So, sorry, I don’t see that this order was trying to constrain what people thought - it was trying to constrain intimidating and antisocial behaviour which had occurred over a long time period and was affecting local residents as well as users and staff of the clinic.
Having been away and now returned to catch up, it seems that despite “omitting the research step” I was not incorrect.
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If you want to feel that, John, no-one’s going to disabuse you
I’ve just noticed this earlier comment @Porridge - it seems we are completely eye to eye here, despite differences over the PSPO and circumstances of Vaughan-Spruce’s arrest
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I almost bid for the bridge but I also read this “When religion ruled the world, it was called the dark ages.”.
The more you look into the use of religion to divide and conquer, the more atrocities you come upon. Whatever the religion, a fanatic is inherently dangerous.
The whole world seems to have lost the spirit of ‘live and let live’ !
This incident is horrific but only hit the headlines because the poor girl died. How many girls have been tortured for this motive who we’ve heard nothing about?
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