The other commenters covered the first point. With regards to your 'reporting on court proceedings' comment, you could only be talking about Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (also known as Tommy Robinson to make himself more palatable to a certain demographic), as he's the only notorious one in recent memory that has been charge with this.
This law is fantastic in my eyes. Contempt of court laws are designed to protect the rule of law, ensure fair trials - and avoid trial by media.
Contempt can be committed by a broad range of people and organisations including the press, jurors, and - as we have learned in recent years - social media users.
He was asked multiple times to stop recording, over the course of the day. He even went as far as filming all the way to the court room. Don't get me wrong, the defendants were scum in this case, but that's for a court to decide. It sets an awful precedent if court trials start to become media frenzies like that of the US. Yaxley-Lennon is a bigot and if they didn't charge him on this law I'm sure he'd get arrested for assaulting someone soon enough, like he'd already done 12 months in prison for previously.
I might suggest that condemning British freedom of press looks questionable from a resident of a country that has a precarious situation at the moment with their press: https://pressfreedomtracker.us/arrest-criminal-charge/
With regards to your final comment, I agree that confiscating knives is extreme. But frankly, our gun laws have been excellent at stopping gun crime and mass shootings - the issue is that the government has extrapolated this to the nth degree and wants to do this for knives now too. It's a symptom of poverty in primarily the city residential areas, and the government wants to appear to be doing something about it. I don't agree it's the best way, but it's a way. It's selectively enforced, and getting charge will result in maybe some community service or a fine - a stint in prison for repeat offenders or those already with numerous misdemeanours; it's certainly no modern dystopia where people are getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads or getting beaten to death while pinned to the ground.
It was OK for Zachary Siegel to get video of the trial, and OK for him to report on the trial. There was in fact video being made available to him, via the media pool. His violation was of a decorum order -- essentially, being rude and making a scene. We don't generally prohibit reporting on a trial. Judges sometimes don't wish to perform on video, so that can be blocked, but reporting from outside the courtroom is always OK.
As I understand it, your situation is more like a general-purpose gag order on the entire trial. Part of ensuring fair trials is making them public. In secrecy, all sorts of bad things happen. Public trials are very much on purpose. Secret trials bring to mind the USSR, North Korea, and similar.
We don't have people getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads either. I think you refer to the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown. Evidence shows he was doing nothing of the sort. Instead, he was trying to grab the cop's gun. His fingerprints were inside the vehicle and evidence from his body shows that the gun was fired from very short range. Yeah, we do have criminals, I admit that, and it sucks.
This law is fantastic in my eyes. Contempt of court laws are designed to protect the rule of law, ensure fair trials - and avoid trial by media.
Contempt can be committed by a broad range of people and organisations including the press, jurors, and - as we have learned in recent years - social media users.
He was asked multiple times to stop recording, over the course of the day. He even went as far as filming all the way to the court room. Don't get me wrong, the defendants were scum in this case, but that's for a court to decide. It sets an awful precedent if court trials start to become media frenzies like that of the US. Yaxley-Lennon is a bigot and if they didn't charge him on this law I'm sure he'd get arrested for assaulting someone soon enough, like he'd already done 12 months in prison for previously.
You're coming in very righteous, so here's something I find quite entertaining - "Reporter Zachary Siegel held in contempt of court and arrested after recording trial" Oct 2018 - https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-zachar...
I might suggest that condemning British freedom of press looks questionable from a resident of a country that has a precarious situation at the moment with their press: https://pressfreedomtracker.us/arrest-criminal-charge/
With regards to your final comment, I agree that confiscating knives is extreme. But frankly, our gun laws have been excellent at stopping gun crime and mass shootings - the issue is that the government has extrapolated this to the nth degree and wants to do this for knives now too. It's a symptom of poverty in primarily the city residential areas, and the government wants to appear to be doing something about it. I don't agree it's the best way, but it's a way. It's selectively enforced, and getting charge will result in maybe some community service or a fine - a stint in prison for repeat offenders or those already with numerous misdemeanours; it's certainly no modern dystopia where people are getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads or getting beaten to death while pinned to the ground.