Aborigine Tent Embassy, Canberra, 39 years White House Peace Camp, 30 years Faslane Peace Camp, 28 years l Falun Gong protest, Chinese Embassy, London, 8 years Brian Haw Peace Camp, Parliament Square, 10 years
These are just a few examples of an established tradition of symbolic round-the-clock vigils outside government establishments worldwide. In a true democracy, people wouldn't need to resort to such extremes to have their voices heard, but the existence of these vigils is often regarded…
I’m currently in training for the London Marathon (more details here), a slightly mad endeavour which means putting myself through increasing long runs in and around Oxford. I tend to find I do a lot of musing as I run, and it crossed my mind the other week that my experience actually might be be of use in the event of getting caught in a kettle. Since there’s a rather big protest coming up this weekend with kettling…
US Arms Manufacturer Lockheed Martin has the contracy for the 2011 UK Census in March this year.
The US arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin makes Trident nuclear missiles, cluster bombs and fighter jets and is involved in data processing for the CIA and FBI. It has provided private contract interrogators for the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Lockheed Martin has the UK Government contract to process the data for the 2011 census in March. (Observer, 20 February 2011)
…(Updated as at 18-03-2011)
US Arms Manufacturer Lockheed Martin has the contract for the 2011 UK Census in March this year.
The arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin US makes Trident nuclear missiles, cluster bombs and fighter jets and is involved in data processing for the CIA and FBI. It has provided private contract interrogators for the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Lockheed Martin has the UK Government contract to collect the process the data for the 2011…
Careful investigation by environmental activists has uncovered the identities of three long-term police infiltrators, one of whom advocated violence. Police constable (PC) Mark Kennedy, known in Nottingham activist circles as “Mark Stone” was publicly exposed on the Indymedia activists’ news website in late October, a fact recorded in PN 2528. (The first report in a British print publication.) Kennedy had been undercover in the environmentalist movement from 2004. In late 2009 he resigned…
London CND continue to resist police attempts to halt their monthly vigil outside parliament. We reported last issue (PN 2526) that the Metropolitan police had given up their efforts to halt the anti-Trident vigil in Parliament Square, after the police phoned London CND worker (and PN news editor) David Polden, authorising future vigils.
Just after going to press, the same officer phoned to tell David the vigil had been disallowed because it wasn’t safe. It could only be held in nearby…
The vigil, authorised by the police under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA), started in May, when the anti-war Democracy Village was already camped in the square. The village was evicted by the greater London authority (GLA) on 20 July, and a high fence erected around the square apart from an enclave for Brian Haw’s round-the-clock anti-war vigil.
Though we had applied for authorisation for the Tuesday vigils up to December 2010, the police phoned Jim Brann…
On 8 July, home secretary Teresa May announced the suspension of “stop and search” powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Section 44 allows police to stop and search anyone in a designated area without needing reasonable suspicion of their being engaged in illegal, let alone terrorist, activity.
According to ministry of justice statistics, in 2008 less than 0.1% of those stopped under the section were even arrested for terrorism offences; and black and…
London mayor Boris Johnson displayed his dedication to free speech on 3 June, by asking the high court to order the immediate eviction of Democracy Village, established on Parliament Square on 1 May. He also asked for the clearance of at least one tent from Brian Haw’s peace campaign, established over nine years ago, from the grassy area of the square, managed by the Greater London Authority.
The campaigners put forward arguments based on the free speech and assembly provisions…
On 10 June, a jury at Isleworth Crown Court took only 30 minutes to find Harvie Brown not guilty of violent disorder at the G20 protests in Threadneedle Street on 1 April 2009.
Witnesses had given evidence that Harvie spent much of the protest in tears in reaction to the violence that he and other protestors were subjected to by police when they imposed a “kettle” (a containment cordon) across the street.
Harvie had appeared on TV news and been widely labelled in the media as a…
The formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government as the result of the UK general election signals changes on several fronts, but no change on the war and peace agenda.
Afghanistan was barely mentioned by the major political parties during the election campaign because, despite overwhelming public opposition to current policies, the war is a consensus position. While Trident replacement was mentioned in the election campaign, it was as a financial and not…
On the day the last PN went to press, 19 April, British comedian and activist Mark Thomas was awarded £1,200 compensation for an unlawful police search. He was stopped and searched for 12 minutes at an anti-arms trade demonstration on 11 September 2007, because of his “over-confident attitude”. Mark said: “£100 a minute is slightly more than my usual rate.”
The chief constable of Kent, Mike Fuller, admitted in the High Court on 12 January that his police had conducted illegal “stop and searches” on 11-year-old twins, Dave Morris and other activists at the August 2008 week-long Climate Camp at the Kingsnorth power station. Police had already been heavily criticised for brutality towards protesters at the camp by officers who hid their badge numbers and for using loud music to stop activists sleeping.
The High Court was told that the…
On 4 November, Maria Gallastegui and two other protesters were arrested at the Cenotaph, opposite Downing Street in London, while trying to hold a 229 minute vigil for the 229 British soldiers who have died in the war in Afghanistan.
The arrest was under section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, that prohibits unauthorised demonstrations in the vicinity of parliament.
Meanwhile, at USAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, Lindis Percy, of the Campaign for Accountability of…
Ten days before the G20 events blew up a storm of public interest around the rights of protestors, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) published its report on “Policing and Protest” – to little media interest.
Whilst perhaps stating the expected (there are no “systematic human rights abuses”, but “the presumption should be in favour of protests taking place without state interference”), the report acknowledges that policing of protests has become “heavy-handed”…
