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Latest 2 June 2025
The EHRC is silencing trans rights activists
The EHRC was created to protect our rights. Now it’s trying to quash peaceful demonstrations.
“Article 11 protects your right to protest by holding meetings and demonstrations with other people” proclaims the website of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Yet today, apparently at its bidding, its landlord is seeking an injunction against protests outside its offices at Tintagel House, Vauxhall, for the entire period for which the EHRC has a licence to occupy.
The injunction, if granted, will last until 31 January 2026 – the date upon which the EHRC’s licence to occupy presently terminates – and prohibits anyone (without the consent of the EHRC’s landlords) “entering, occupy or remain upon all or any part of the commercial premises known as Tintagel House” including on the forecourt outside its offices.
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It is possible you may be able to protest on the public pavement or road outside its office – although you risk criminal conviction – but otherwise the order creates a world in which someone protesting against its actions could be found in contempt of court – and would risk imprisonment if they even enter the forecourt.
The application was sparked by an entirely peaceful encampment by Trans Kids Deserve Better outside Tintagel House which concluded as planned on Friday 30 May 2025 when, to quote the landlord, the protestors “left several signs and placards affixed to the main entrance of the building but… otherwise left it tidy and free from rubbish.”
We are now in an upside down world. The EHRC was set up to “encourage good practice in relation to human rights” and “promote… protection of human rights.”
Its chair, Kishwer Falkner, was appointed by Liz Truss. Under her, although it is obliged to defend free speech she has said it is “unacceptable to question the integrity of… the regulator”; although it is bound to protect protest rights it appears to be seeking to ban protests outside its offices; although it should protect trans rights her guidance represents an attack (one we believe unlawful) upon that targeted community.
Good Law Project is intervening to resist the injunction application. We are not acting for Trans Kids Deserve Better – although we admire their courage. We are intervening because we think the right to protest – especially against the Government and especially when it does appalling things – is important.