Archive for the ‘Protest’ Category
Restore the right to protest
Time to get your letter-writing head on.
I’ve read the consultation document, and have had my faith (slightly) renewed in the democratic process by it - it is a well put together piece of documentation that highlights the differences between the Public Order Act 1986 and SOCPA 132-138 which covers protest in the
Parliamentary zone.
The main thrust of the argument is that, while there has always been a requirement for protest organisers to inform the police (where possible) the wider public order law has always allowed for the possibility of completely spontaneous protest,which SOCPA specifically prohibits, by requiring 6 days notice where possible and *no less* than 24 hours.
In effect, this has ‘chilled’ the possibility of good old-fashioned hot-blooded British protest, and has also chilled, through over-enthusiastic enforcement, the making of *any* spontaneous or incidental political statement within the zone (witness people with political slogans on t-shirts being detained, and the woman who was arrested, charged and convicted for reading thenames of the Iraq war dead outside Downing Street).
Democracy is, by its nature, a messy, shouty business, and should be celebrated for that very messiness and shoutiness. This heavy-handed and rigourously enforced law was introduced without thought for its future application, and failed in its main objective of removing the permanent protest of Brian Haw. Of course, all it’s really succeeded in doing is stopping people from freely expressing their views outside the ‘Mother of Parliaments’, and has led to criminal convictions for people who have done so. It’s a dangerous, over-reaching law which is all too prone to misuse on the ground, and it needs to go. Download the consultation document, have a read and participate in reversing at least one of the draconian impositions on your freedoms.
A longer post on this is coming once I’ve gathered my sources and had a think. Get writing!
