Letters Guardian readers on the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill and the threat it poses to civil liberties A woman holds a banner during a protest against violence against women and new proposed police powers. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images A woman holds a banner during a protest against violence against women and new proposed police powers. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Wed 17 Mar 2021 14.03 EDT Last modified on Wed 17 Mar 2021 14.19 EDT Your leader (The Guardian view on policing dissent: Johnson plays politics with protest, 15 March) rightly notes: “Whatever pieties the government cloaks its proposals in, a partisan systematic reduction in civil liberties is a very dangerous thing for democracies.” Indeed, the words used by the home secretary and government spokesperson in defence of the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, and of police action at the vigil, come straight from the PR coaching manual used by President Putin and his like in Hungary, Hong Kong, Myanmar and far too many places round the world.