Birmingham city council asks judge to prevent LGBT lessons protestors from being near school

As reported by The Guardian, a high court judge has been asked to extend an exclusion zone permanently banning activists against LGBT equality lessons from demonstrating outside a Birmingham primary school

Protesters went up against the local authority during the five-day trial to stop protests outside Anderton Park primary school. The school, in the Sparkhill area of the city, has become the focus of a long campaign to halt LGBT equality messages being taught in the classroom.
Most of the protesters have been of Muslim faith and some have stood regularly outside the school chanting “Let kids be kids” and carrying placards with the message: “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”
Birmingham city council launched court action to prevent more protests outside the school after about 300 people gathered at the gates in May.
Following the five-day hearing, high court judge, Justice Warby, reserved his judgment until a later date.
An emergency interim order was granted, and later extended in June, which sought to halt any more gatherings near the primary school that could disrupt pupils or intimidate staff.
The temporary injunction banned defendants Shakeel Afsar, his sister Rosina Afsar – who had two children at Anderton Park but has since removed one of them – and Amir Ahmed from coordinating protests outside the school.
All three defendants gave evidence at this week’s hearing and are contesting the need for a legal injunction to curtail protests.
The judge heard closing arguments in the case of Friday, including a invitation from the council’s barrister, Jonathan Manning QC, to extend the existing ban on protests to two further areas of land on a road near the school.
Manning told Birmingham’s Civil Justice Centre: “It’s clear that the conduct in question is such as to satisfy the definition of anti-social behaviour and public nuisance.
“I am instructed to ask for a modest variation to the (existing) orders. What we have seen by the movement (of protests) from outside the school gates to where it currently takes place is a significantly higher level of disturbance to other members of the community in their residences, due to very loud amplification.”
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