PROTESTERS have thrown police crime scene tape onto the surrounds of the pitch at Motherwell's Fir Park in the latest demonstration calling for the scrapping of a controversial anti-bigotry law designed to stamp out offensive behaviour at matches in Scotland.
Protest group Fans Against Criminalisation described the protest which happened during Celtic's defeat of Motherwell as "wonderful".
Police Scotland confirmed two men were arrested following an alleged disturbance at around 2pm near the South Stand exit, but nobody was injured.
One banner displayed in the crowd said: "Stop disrupting lives."
What a mess this Bill is @FACKilltheBill pic.twitter.com/frdUuJUyXy
— Blantyre Commercial (@BCommyCSC) October 17, 2015
As the tape was being thrown onto the pitch fans were heard to chant: "All Celtic fans against the bill."
Another banner said: "SNP, stop disrupting fans lives."
FAC said it supported the protest organised by the Green Brigade group of Celtic fans and the Well Bois Motherwell fans group.
The group said: "We hope that this protest will help to highlight the issues we have been campaigning on for some time. Every single mainstream opposition party in Scotland opposes this Act, as do many notable lawyers, sheriffs, political commentators and Celtic Football Club.
"We call on the Scottish Government to accept that this legislation has achieved nothing other than to criminalise ordinary football fans and to repeal it as a matter of urgency.
"The Scottish Government cannot reasonably expect football fans to meekly accept the harassment they face nor the attacks on their rights to freedom of speech."
The Green Brigade group of Celtic fans said it had worked in unison with the Heavy Hands, Empty Stands’campaign of Motherwell supporters to "highlight our shared concern" at the Act.
The group said: "Whilst we would rather that all fans could watch a match and support their team without disruption, a very slight delay to clear some tennis balls and police tape pales in significance with the disruption that has been caused to fan’s lives without due justification.
"The fact that there has been a unified action from two clubs against this Act highlights that this is an issue which affects all football supporters. This is perhaps the first time that rival supporters have cooperated in this way over a political issue since Celtic and Dundee Utd supporters demonstrated their opposition to Margaret Thatcher and the Poll Tax during the Scottish Cup Final in 1988.
"The SNP have reneged on their promise to fully review the OBAF Act whilst Police Scotland have actively sought to prevent dissent against it, however this is merely the beginning of a renewed campaign for the immediate repeal of this legislation."
The protest comes a fortnight after concerns about the level of policing at a banner demonstration planned for Douglas Park, Hamilton which led to banners being prevented from being taken in.
SNP - Stop Disrupting Fan's Lives pic.twitter.com/v04EBhIwrB
— FAC (@FACKilltheBill) October 17, 2015
Video showing a police officer appearing to seize a banner used in the protest is to be used in a complaint about how Police Scotland handled the demonstration.
The force had said that no banners were confiscated at the Hamilton v Celtic match but video emerged of officers appearing to take a banner off fans in a Morrisons supermarket, adjacent to New Douglas Park while escorting them off the property without arrest.
FAC organised the protest before and during Hamilton's defeat at the hands of Celtic as they continued their opposition to the Act on the grounds that it is "fundamentally illiberal and unnecessarily restricts freedom of expression".
The Scottish Government pushed through the Act in a bid to get tough on sectarianism in the aftermath of the Old Firm 'shame game' in 2011.
A petition signed by more than 9000 people on online and paper forms objecting to the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 has been handed to the Scottish Parliament's petitions' committee.
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