UK woman arrested for silently praying across from abortion clinic

[rogue06]

Totally relevant in as much as those links show just how much difficulty abortion clinics are now having here.
These Orders are also written to protect other venues as well, of course. Some shops and businesses need such orders to be in force.

I must look to see just how much trouble this woman has previously caused........

That's like saying because there was a riot in Minneapolis where scores of businesses were burned to the ground that they should go around arresting people for just thinking about what happened if they're near one of the burned out stores.

All she was doing was quietly standing across the street. She was arrested because she was praying silently in her head.

[tabibito]

Brill Online excerpts "Daniel, Tomb of," from the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, but again the portion of the quote showing the specific Josephus citation is dropped and pay-walled.

I find many references to Josephus' mention of the tomb of Daniel - except in the cited works of Josephus themselves. Maybe I have a flawed copy??

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

A response which, after I wrote this

Several sources, including our good buddies at Wikipedia say

The 1st century Jewish writer Josephus reported that Daniel's body lay in a tower in Ecbatana in Parthia, alongside the bodies of the kings of the Medes and Persians; later Jewish authorities said he was buried in Susa

which appears to cite Noegel, Scott B.; Wheeler, Brannon M. (2002). Historical Dictionary of Prophets in Islam and Judaism but don't bother saying where in Josephus this is mentioned.

leaves me wonder if you aren't very bright. Or maybe just inattentive

It leaves me wondering why you made an emphatic statement for which you had not a scintilla of textual evidence.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

I find many references to Josephus' mention of the tomb of Daniel - except in the cited works of Josephus themselves. Maybe I have a flawed copy??

Where?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

All she was doing was quietly standing across the street. She was arrested because she was praying silently in her head.

She was loitering in a restricted area where she was not entitled to be.

And if she had been a pro-choice individual who had refused to voluntarily accompany the police to the station to be interviewed, she would also have been arrested.

This is nothing to do with what she was thinking but the fact that she was [a] where she should not have been and [b] her refusal comply with a request from the police officer.

[tabibito]

This piece in Josephus is as close to the idea that Daniel was interred in the tower at Ecbatana as Josephus' actual writing gets:

Antiquities 11.11.7. When therefore those that had intended thus to destroy Daniel by treachery were
themselves destroyed, king Darius sent [letters] over all the country, and praised that God
whom Daniel worshipped, and said that he was the only true God, and had all power. He
had also Daniel in very great esteem, and made him the principal of his friends. Now when
Daniel was become so illustrious and famous, on account of the opinion men had that he
was beloved of God, he built a tower at Ecbatana, in Media: it was a most elegant building,
and wonderfully made, and it is still remaining, and preserved to this day; and to such as
see it, it appears to have been lately built, and to have been no older than that very day when
any one looks upon it, it is so fresh flourishing, and beautiful, and no way grown old in

571

so long time; for buildings suffer the same as men do, they grow old as well as they, and by
numbers of years their strength is dissolved, and their beauty withered. Now they bury the
kings of Media, of Persia, and Parthia in this tower to this day, and he who was entrusted
with the care of it was a Jewish priest; which thing is also observed to this day. But it is fit
to give an account of what this man did, which is most admirable to hear, for he was so
happy as to have strange revelations made to him, and those as to one of the greatest of the
prophets, insomuch, that while he was alive he had the esteem and applause both of the
kings and of the multitude; and now he is dead, he retains a remembrance that will never
fail, for the several books that he wrote and left behind him are still read by us till this time;

Finding works that cite Josephus as saying that Daniel was buried in the tower is easy, just a matter of querying Google - trying to find the cited piece by checking Josephus' writings themselves is not so easy (it is passing strange how often that sort of thing happens).


It has been a long time since I took a citation at face value.

[tabibito]

She was loitering in a restricted area where she was not entitled to be.

And if she had been a pro-choice individual who had refused to voluntarily accompany the police to the station to be interviewed, she would also have been arrested.

This is nothing to do with what she was thinking but the fact that she was [a] where she should not have been and [b] her refusal comply with a request from the police officer.

yup - but as I noted before, the act of attending the clinic to procure an abortion would fall into the banned category of "being on site and expressing approval of abortion."

[Diogenes]

She was loitering in a restricted area where she was not entitled to be.

Nothing that has been cited has supported loitering alone was a prohibited activity.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

yup - but as I noted before, the act of attending the clinic to procure an abortion would fall into the banned category of "being on site and expressing approval of abortion."

No it would not.

[Gondwanaland]

Where?

I find many references to Josephus' mention of the tomb of Daniel - except in the cited works of Josephus themselves. Maybe I have a flawed copy??

What in the blazes does the tomb of daniel or Jesephus' writings have to do with a woman being arrested in 2022 in the UK?

[Gondwanaland]

No it would not.

Technically it should, as obtaining one is your approval of it.

[tabibito]

No it would not.

The person chooses to get an abortion = the person approves of abortion. Attending the clinic to procure an abortion = (self evident) expressing that approval. The clinic is in a protected area = expressing approval of abortion in an area where expressing approval or disapproval is prohibited.

The letter of the law is what counts in a court.

[Gondwanaland]

She was loitering in a restricted area where she was not entitled to be.

Quote from the PSPO Where that is the case. Let's see it. You don't have "textual evidence" for your assertion.

And if she had been a pro-choice individual who had refused to voluntarily accompany the police to the station to be interviewed, she would also have been arrested.

we both know that's not true.

This is nothing to do with what she was thinking but the fact that she was [a] where she should not have been and [b] her refusal comply with a request from the police officer.

Except it has everything to do with what she was thinking. She had the same right as anyone to be present on the sidewalk across from the clinic. She was not protesting, was not speaking, was not giving any external indicator of what was going on inside her head. Just standing there and thinking thoughts. She was arrested when she told the cop she might be praying inside her head. There's no getting around this.

[tabibito]

What in the blazes does the tomb of daniel or Jesephus' writings have to do with a woman being arrested in 2022 in the UK?

No idea - but I was following up on other comments. In a thread this long, derails are normal, and the thread has resumed its original course already.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Nothing that has been cited has supported loitering alone was a prohibited activity.

The PSPO did precisely that.

https://www.communitylawpartnership....tection-orders

Power to make Orders

(1) A local authority may make a Public Spaces Protection Order if satisfied on reasonable grounds that two conditions are met.

(2) The first condition is that –

(a) Activities carried on in a public place within the authority’s area have had a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality, or

(b) It is likely that activities will be carried on in a public place within that area and that they will have such an effect.

(3) The second condition is that the effect, or likely effect, of the activities –

(a) Is, or is likely to be, of a persistent of continuing nature,

(b) Is, or is likely to be, such as to make the activities unreasonable, and

(c) Justifies the restrictions imposed by the Notice.

(4) A Public Spaces Protection Order is an Order that identifies the public place referred to in sub-section (2) (“the restricted area”) and –

(a) Prohibits specified things being done in the restricted area,

Given the council sites' comment. My emphasis:

https://www.birminghambeheard.org.uk...-consultation/

After an unprecedented response to the Robert Clinic Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) public consultation. We received more than 2,100 completed questionnaires from members of the public.

We can announce that the public were in overwhelming support of the introduction of a PSPO to protect service users and staff who attend the clinic from both pro-life and pro-choice vigils/protests.

It would appear that "those in the locality" may well have been in favour of the prohibition of certain specified activities and things "being done in the restricted area".

If you lived in the same street as an abortion clinic would you want groups of individuals cluttering up the area outside it chanting, shouting, singing, accosting those who were using it, and generally being a public nuisance irrespective of those individuals' personal opinions?