Our right to protest
Cath Conway | 02.05.2001 14:36
Why was our legal right to protest taken from us yesterday and why is noone discussing this? Half report- half reply to those who are posting abusive messages.
Yesterday, in the eyes of the mass media, was a tactical victory for the police in the sense that they stopped a lot of potential violence/ damage, but it was a sad day for our right to protest.
What actually went on at Oxford Circus has been well documented on this site but noone appears to be discussing the long-term implications. The real problems lie in what happened on route there. We were restricted at every point, all main bridges were blocked, Regent Street & Ox St so we couldn’t get to Oxford Circus even though we were an hour earlier than the proposed meeting time (although we obviously did but only through using random side streets). Now, I assume that wonderful piece of legislation, the Criminal Justice Bill, put the provisos in place for the police to legally do this but there is a very serious issue about our right to protest and demonstrate which we were denied yesterday by having our routes blocked at all points thereby stopping any form of a rally from forming. The police got away with this under the guise of the ‘perceived threat of violence’ (just think about the implications of the word perceived.)
The point is a lot of people are unhappy with the way things (read; the world) are going and want to do something about it and, which ever way you look at it, its our right to do something as well as our individual and collective responsibility to do something constructive for the other 364 days of the year.
I’m not advocating throwing fire extinguishers at police horses but since when did a 100% non-violent protest ever work? (think CND, how many nuclear warheads are hanging around now?) Realistically, the only real violence came as the people were let out of the pig(s) pen- if you had been hemmed in for 6 hours wouldn’t you be a bit pissed off?
Whether it was effective as a protest will remain to be seen. The issues that people are concerned about at the minute are not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s fine but just think: at some point in the future it is almost certain that you will want to protest about something. Unless people start to think rationally about protests and the people that attend etc, the government will slyly put some legislation through whilst fuelling the idea that the type of people that go on these marches are all loonies.
I'm not an anarchist (and truthfully nor are half the people that claim to be [no disrespect to those that are])- I'm more concerned with what we do for the other 364 days of the year and how we start planning now for next year so that this doesn't happen again.
Answers on a postcard please
What actually went on at Oxford Circus has been well documented on this site but noone appears to be discussing the long-term implications. The real problems lie in what happened on route there. We were restricted at every point, all main bridges were blocked, Regent Street & Ox St so we couldn’t get to Oxford Circus even though we were an hour earlier than the proposed meeting time (although we obviously did but only through using random side streets). Now, I assume that wonderful piece of legislation, the Criminal Justice Bill, put the provisos in place for the police to legally do this but there is a very serious issue about our right to protest and demonstrate which we were denied yesterday by having our routes blocked at all points thereby stopping any form of a rally from forming. The police got away with this under the guise of the ‘perceived threat of violence’ (just think about the implications of the word perceived.)
The point is a lot of people are unhappy with the way things (read; the world) are going and want to do something about it and, which ever way you look at it, its our right to do something as well as our individual and collective responsibility to do something constructive for the other 364 days of the year.
I’m not advocating throwing fire extinguishers at police horses but since when did a 100% non-violent protest ever work? (think CND, how many nuclear warheads are hanging around now?) Realistically, the only real violence came as the people were let out of the pig(s) pen- if you had been hemmed in for 6 hours wouldn’t you be a bit pissed off?
Whether it was effective as a protest will remain to be seen. The issues that people are concerned about at the minute are not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s fine but just think: at some point in the future it is almost certain that you will want to protest about something. Unless people start to think rationally about protests and the people that attend etc, the government will slyly put some legislation through whilst fuelling the idea that the type of people that go on these marches are all loonies.
I'm not an anarchist (and truthfully nor are half the people that claim to be [no disrespect to those that are])- I'm more concerned with what we do for the other 364 days of the year and how we start planning now for next year so that this doesn't happen again.
Answers on a postcard please
Cath Conway
e-mail:
cathconway@hotmail.com
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