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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/25/gina-miller-racist-threats-police-arrest-second-man
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Gina Miller racist threats: police arrest second man | Gina Miller racist threats: police arrest second man |
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A second man has been arrested in relation to alleged threats against Brexit court campaigner Gina Miller. | |
Officers from the Metropolitan police’s Operation Falcon arrested the 50-year-old at an address in Knightsbridge, central London, on Wednesday morning on suspicion of racially aggravated malicious communications. | |
Miller, 51, has complained of receiving a series of racist messages following her decision to spearhead the legal challenge that resulted on Tuesday in a historic supreme court defeat for the government over Brexit. | |
Eight people have already been issued with “cease and desist” notices by police which, according to the Met “advise recipients that continuing with their current actions or behaviour could result in police action”. | |
The police said that among those who received the notices were a 38-year-old man from Fife, a 51-year-old man from Inverness-shire, a 57-year-old man from London, and a 54-year-old man from Hemel Hempstead who received the notices in December. | |
On 4 January, a 30-year-old man from Manchester was also served with a notice. | |
In December, a 55-year-old man was arrested in Swindon on suspicion of sending racially aggravated malicious communications. He was released on bail and the Crown Prosecution Service decided to take no further action. | |
“The police have been fantastic,” Miller said. “What is amazing is that these people imagine that they can’t be tracked down and when they are they are so shocked and it stops.” | |
In an interview with the Guardian, Miller said she did not take the threats personally and that the abuse she had endured following the case was “worth it”. However, the abuse has forced her to hire personal bodyguards when appearing at public events. She has also stopped going into her office and using public transport. | |
Following her historic supreme court victory on Tuesday, she said she hoped people in positions of power would do more to speak out against those that break the boundaries of common decency. | |
“I’ve been told that ‘as a coloured woman’, I’m not even human, I’m a primate and only a piece of meat and I should be hunted down and killed,” she said in an interview with the Guardian. | |
She also hoped her experience would help other women realise how the police can help hunt down internet trolls. | |
She believes the issue is not the internet or the masks of fictional names and images that people hide behind; it is more fundamental than that and goes to the heart of what values society wants to live by. | |
“The idea that this abuse is the work of keyboard warriors is just not the case,” said Miller. “These people take the time to make posters with vile images, put them in envelopes and post them. They go to the trouble of finding my email address or office number. This is really premeditated stuff. | |
“It’s the message, it is the content that is what is important here. It’s that these messages can be allowed, it doesn’t matter whether it’s an email or a letter or an attack in a public place, it’s still abuse.” |