Bayer Feb 11th high court ruling
london bod | 11.02.2004 16:52 | Bio-technology | Cambridge | London | Oxford
Today, Bayer AG tried to make permanent a court order against six named individuals and five 'organisations' connected to campaigns against the company.
The high court judge (who has a history of granting injunctions, for example responsible for a recent injunction preventing a tabloid news paper publish some poxy royal dirt story), will give his ruling on Friday 13th.
The interim injuntion, which was granted late last December, will remain effective until the ruling is given on friday.
The injuntion effectively makes previously lawful activities into criminal offences and it seems quite clear that the judge will rule in favor of bayer...
The high court judge (who has a history of granting injunctions, for example responsible for a recent injunction preventing a tabloid news paper publish some poxy royal dirt story), will give his ruling on Friday 13th.
The interim injuntion, which was granted late last December, will remain effective until the ruling is given on friday.
The injuntion effectively makes previously lawful activities into criminal offences and it seems quite clear that the judge will rule in favor of bayer...
at one stage the judge said that protesters could not be trusted! Fair point perhaps, but of course there was no mention of Bayer trying to impose GM into everyones environment against the wishes of the public. There was also no mention of them being named amoung the top ten worst corporations by Multination Monitor.
[
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/bayer/bayer1.html]
The court order uses the Protection From Harassment Act, which was orginally introduced as being needed to protect women from stalkers (needless to say, the new powers were first used by companies in an attempt to stop demonstrations). In the court, both the judge and the bayer representative talked about the 'balancing act' required to ensure that the freedom from harassment did not effect people rights to protest, or protest effects people right to not be harassed.
When talking about resent demonstrations against bayer, the bayer representative said that they had no problem with people shouting, but making a noise was unacceptable apparently. He explained how protestest had made a terrible racket at Bayers Newbury HQ a few months ago and gave evidence that the noise was intended to distrupt workers.
The judge also heard that protesters were planing a 'virtual sit-in' of bayers website (coincidently happening on this very day while they sat in court discussing the injunction that they apparently hope will end the campaign against them). Ask what effect this would have, the bayer representative explained that it would shut down all of the companies electronic communications system and prevent staff from sending emails.
One might wonder what email blockades have to do with a court order alledgedly intended to protect staff from intimidation and harassment.
The named individuals were being represented by a barraster but the named 'organisations' were not represented. Most of those names are not membership organisations in anyway - infact two of the so-called organisations are websites (one of which no longer available as the domain name has lapsed).
After the court I spoke to the baraster acting on behalf of the six named individuals.
He talked about how difficult it was trying to represent people who had taken part in accountable actions while the opposition was talking about the actions of unrelated people who had also targeted bayer.
He also said that some protesters played right into Bayers hands with the language used on some of the websites and reports.
The wider implications
Reading the injuction (available in full from the Bayer AG website), it is clear that the court order will effect not only those named.
There is a sections about reporting actions which might have implications for Indymedia. While Indymedia is an open publishing site, it could potentially be held responsible for posts by people that breach the injunction. Certainly Bayer are reading Indymedia [hiya guys] and have presented many articles from Indy as evidence in court.
Of course taking on Indymedia might be opening a can of worms that would backfire on Bayer. Time will tell.
Further info
Injunction www.bayer.co.uk
Bayer profile www.corporatewatch.org.uk
Bayer Watch www.cbgnetwork.org
Stop Bayer GM Crops www.stopbayergm.org
[
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/profiles/bayer/bayer1.html] The court order uses the Protection From Harassment Act, which was orginally introduced as being needed to protect women from stalkers (needless to say, the new powers were first used by companies in an attempt to stop demonstrations). In the court, both the judge and the bayer representative talked about the 'balancing act' required to ensure that the freedom from harassment did not effect people rights to protest, or protest effects people right to not be harassed.
When talking about resent demonstrations against bayer, the bayer representative said that they had no problem with people shouting, but making a noise was unacceptable apparently. He explained how protestest had made a terrible racket at Bayers Newbury HQ a few months ago and gave evidence that the noise was intended to distrupt workers.
The judge also heard that protesters were planing a 'virtual sit-in' of bayers website (coincidently happening on this very day while they sat in court discussing the injunction that they apparently hope will end the campaign against them). Ask what effect this would have, the bayer representative explained that it would shut down all of the companies electronic communications system and prevent staff from sending emails.
One might wonder what email blockades have to do with a court order alledgedly intended to protect staff from intimidation and harassment.
The named individuals were being represented by a barraster but the named 'organisations' were not represented. Most of those names are not membership organisations in anyway - infact two of the so-called organisations are websites (one of which no longer available as the domain name has lapsed).
After the court I spoke to the baraster acting on behalf of the six named individuals.
He talked about how difficult it was trying to represent people who had taken part in accountable actions while the opposition was talking about the actions of unrelated people who had also targeted bayer.
He also said that some protesters played right into Bayers hands with the language used on some of the websites and reports.
The wider implications
Reading the injuction (available in full from the Bayer AG website), it is clear that the court order will effect not only those named.
There is a sections about reporting actions which might have implications for Indymedia. While Indymedia is an open publishing site, it could potentially be held responsible for posts by people that breach the injunction. Certainly Bayer are reading Indymedia [hiya guys] and have presented many articles from Indy as evidence in court.
Of course taking on Indymedia might be opening a can of worms that would backfire on Bayer. Time will tell.
Further info
Injunction www.bayer.co.uk
Bayer profile www.corporatewatch.org.uk
Bayer Watch www.cbgnetwork.org
Stop Bayer GM Crops www.stopbayergm.org
london bod
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