The Scotsman article was originally here:

 http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=2028602005

The Torygraph also carried mention of 600 people being stopped:

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/10/03/do0304.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/03/ixnewstop.html

I hope you Brits overthrow the facist British monarchy and install an American Style republic with constitutionally protected rights.

Under the New Reich, Blair's various 'terrorism' acts are ACTUALLY designed to terrorise.

We see this word so often, we probably don't even bother to think what it actually means.

TERRORISE. When bombs went off in the underground, was there much a physical change in how people by-and-large behaved in the days afterwards. Probably not (save for dark-skinned peeps with a previous habit of wearing jackets and using rucksacks- I'm sure many of them looked for other clothes and bags).

TERRORISE. We are not supposed to change our physical behaviour- but WE ARE supposed to feel fear and uncertainty. We empower the politicians with our support (passive acceptance in our case, since only two-in-ten voted for Blair). However, if we LIKE the Status Quo, we will resist attempts by our 'leaders' to change it.

TERRORISE. We need to be MADE to shake loose our certainty in certain principles and beliefs, so that our masters are not bound by these factors. We are turkeys that MUST be made to vote for Christmas. In theory, not an easy thing to do. In practice, the turkey must be given a greater fear, so that it stops contemplating Xmas.

TERRORISE. Even when some humans stay strong enough to want to oppose Blair, and his New Reich party, they must be made to expect the worst. Harassment and worse MUST seem inevitable. Every protester should be aware of horror stories, especially from people they directly know.

TERRORISE. We must witness the fact that Blair shows NO MERCY to the weak, young, very old, or women. We must not be capable of believing that the right kind of protest, with the right kind of participant, will be safe from the thuggery of Blair, and his New Reich goons. We must be shown clear evidence of the twisted, vicious, hulking "attack-dogs" that make up Blair's personal army of brutal enforcers given free reign to commit the most despicable acts of violence against gentle peaceful people who have made the 'mistake' of speaking against Blair.

TERRORISE. We must expect our Muslim neighbour to be in imminent danger of violent and brutal arrest, and detention.

TERRORISE. We must expect the most despicable leaders from the most despicable regimes to be the welcome guests of Blair, and Straw, and any protest against these wicked people to be suppressed ruthlessly.

TERRORISE. We must become so sick with waiting 'for the other shoe to drop' that we crave the end of the phoney war, and welcome the beginning of the REAL war.

Anyway, it's all been said before, and by people far more literate than myself. Problem is, no matter how well worn and transparent the methods of Blair, it does not matter if people refuse to avail themselves of the lessons of history, and understand this for themselves.

Blair TERRORISES us as an evil man, with evil associates, and evil supporters, in the name of the greater evils that he intends to inflict on ourselves and others. Why does he get away with this? Because we have allowed all hope of an alternative better future to die. When hope dies, EVERYTHING will die.

Most of you that read this endure the growing horror with the last litany of the doomed- "It hasn't happened yet, so it probably won't happen". If you think on it, you will understand that this is Blair's best desired outcome from his policy of terror.

The police must end their abuse of anti-terror legislation
By Philip Johnston

(Filed: 03/10/2005)
 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/10/03/do0304.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/03/ixnewstop.html

There was a good deal of justifiable anger over the Brown Shirt tactics of the Labour Party in ejecting an 82-year-old German-Jewish émigré from its conference in Brighton for having the effrontery to heckle Jack Straw's foreign policy speech. But the most bizarre aspect of the affair was the use of the Terrorism Act 2000 to detain Walter Wolfgang, albeit briefly, as he tried to get back in.

Why on earth did the police invoke counter-terrorist legislation against an individual who patently was not intent on any terrorist activity, had been given security clearance when his pass was issued and who would, presumably, have been quite content to answer any questions the officer wished to ask him?

The use of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 has become increasingly controversial. It bestows exceptional powers on the police to stop and search at random, once a particular geographical area has been designated by a chief officer as one that might be targeted by terrorists, and authorised as such by the Home Secretary.

Brighton in the week of the Labour conference was clearly a possible target, so authority was given to use the Act there. On occasions, the whole of London has been given a blanket designation under Section 44, though this has to be renewed every 28 days. As opposed to normal stop and search powers, "reasonable suspicion" that an offence is being committed is not needed.

After the carnage in the capital on July 7, those of us who live and work there want the police to have the powers that improve the chances of intercepting potential bombers. But Section 44 is often deployed against people who would normally be regarded as protesters, not terrorists. In the financial year after the Act came into force - which included the period of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington - there were 8,500 stops and searches under the Act. The following year, there were 21,500 and for the financial year 2003-04, the last for which figures available, there were 29,407.

Although these interceptions led to some arrests for terrorism-related offences (though not of terrorists themselves), people stopped under Section 44 powers were eight times more likely to be arrested for other offences, including motoring infractions. This suggests, at the very least, that the powers are being used in a pretty arbitrary way, despite assurances from the Government that they would be deployed only when there is "a good reason to believe that there is genuinely a terrorist threat". In his annual review of the Terrorism Act, Lord Carlile said the use of Section 44 "could be cut by at least 50 per cent without significant risk to the public or detriment to policing".

Among those on the receiving end of the Terrorism Act were dozens of protesters outside Europe's biggest arms fair, in London's Docklands in 2003. When the legality of the use of Section 44 was tested by Liberty, the civil rights organisation, the High Court said the police commander had been entitled to apply the powers because the arms fair was controversial, was happening near an airport and was close to the site of a previous terrorist incident.

However, the Appeal Court said that if the police were given exceptional powers because of threats to public safety, they had to be used with the "appropriate circumspection" and it was "a fairly close call" as to whether they had been in this instance, though police were given the benefit of the doubt.

Liberty is taking this case to the House of Lords; and the signs are, not least in Brighton last week, that the police have still to take on board the court's and Lord Carlile's concerns about the way the powers are used. Earlier this year, a group of trainspotters was detained and searched under Section 44 at Basingstoke station, which was on a list of possible terrorist targets drawn up by the Home Office.

By taking photographs of carriages and noting down serial numbers, the spotters were accused of behaving like a reconnaissance unit for a terrorist cell. They were forced to empty their pockets, explain their actions and prove their identity.

Two years ago, anti-war protesters - many of them elderly veterans of 1960s ban-the-bomb marches - were stopped under Section 44 on their way to RAF Fairford, Glos, used by American B-52 bombers during the Iraq conflict. Again, these were quite clearly demonstrators. At the time, David Blunkett, then home secretary, said: "Powers under this legislation are applied solely for the prevention and investigation of acts of terrorism."

Yet among those stopped was an 11-year-old girl, who was required to empty her pockets, before being handed a notification slip under the Act - one of more than 1,000 issued to protesters. In July, a cricketer on his way to a match was stopped at King's Cross station in London under Section 44 powers and questioned over his possession of a bat. The police thought he might have been travelling to Scotland to cause trouble at the G8 summit. Maybe so. But why use anti-terror laws for what was a potential public order offence at worst?

The reason this matters is that, last week, Tony Blair said, in the context of crime and anti-social behaviour, that he did not think "that the traditional law can give law-abiding people adequate protection". He added: "Whatever powers the police need to crack down on this, I will give them." At the risk of sounding naive, given its supine state, it remains Parliament's function to make the law, and it is time it woke from its slumber and stopped this drift into a police state. At Labour's conference last week more than 600 people were stopped under Section 44.

Of course there is a balance to be struck between ensuring that the police have effective counter-terrorism powers and the freedom of the citizen to go about his daily business unmolested. There are times when exceptional measures are warranted to override the normal expectation that the police will intervene in our lives only if there is reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed. But it is wrong to use them to stifle lawful protest.

David Davis said, "terrorist laws should only be used to deter terrorism."

He also said we should lock up terrorists, not activists, because he won't sacrifice fundemental freedoms, unless it's the human rights laws which prevent him from removing extremists, these should be scrapped.

He believes there are too few criminals in prison and he will build more to house them He wants an increase in police, although Labour has increased them already to record numbers. Davis said, that will tackle the causes of crime.

The Tories goal is power, he says, with a purpose, to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves, whether they want to fight or not, so stop apologising and get on with job, the best is yet to come. Bigger and better wars.

Protest is criminalised and the huffers and puffers say nothing

The police abuse terror and harassment laws to penalise dissent while we insist civil liberties are our gift to the world

George Monbiot
Tuesday October 4, 2005
The Guardian

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1584114,00.html

'We are trying to fight 21st-century crime - antisocial behaviour, drug dealing, binge drinking, organised crime - with 19th-century methods, as if we still lived in the time of Dickens." Tony Blair, September 27 2005.

"Down poured the wine like oil on blazing fire. And still the riot went on - the debauchery gained its height - glasses were dashed upon the floor by hands that could not carry them to lips, oaths were shouted out by lips which could scarcely form the words to vent them in; drunken losers cursed and roared; some mounted on the tables, waving bottles above their heads and bidding defiance to the rest; some danced, some sang, some tore the cards and raved. Tumult and frenzy reigned supreme ..." Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens, 1839.

Article continues
All politicians who seek to justify repressive legislation claim that they are responding to an unprecedented threat to public order. And all politicians who cite such a threat draft measures in response which can just as easily be used against democratic protest. No act has been passed over the past 20 years with the aim of preventing antisocial behaviour, disorderly conduct, trespass, harassment and terrorism that has not also been deployed to criminalise a peaceful public engagement in politics. When Walter Wolfgang was briefly detained by the police after heckling the foreign secretary last week, the public caught a glimpse of something that a few of us have been vainly banging on about for years.

On Friday, six students and graduates of Lancaster University were convicted of aggravated trespass. Their crime was to have entered a lecture theatre and handed out leaflets to the audience. Staff at the university were meeting people from BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Shell, the Carlyle Group, GlaxoSmithKline, DuPont, Unilever and Diageo, to learn how to "commercialise university research". The students were hoping to persuade the researchers not to sell their work. They were in the theatre for three minutes. As the judge conceded, they tried neither to intimidate anyone nor to stop the conference from proceeding.

They were prosecuted under the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, passed when Michael Howard was the Conservative home secretary. But the university was able to use it only because Labour amended the act in 2003 to ensure that it could be applied anywhere, rather than just "in the open air".

Had Mr Wolfgang said "nonsense" twice during the foreign secretary's speech, the police could have charged him under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Harassment, the act says, "must involve conduct on at least two occasions ... conduct includes speech". Parliament was told that its purpose was to protect women from stalkers, but the first people to be arrested were three peaceful protesters. Since then it has been used by the arms manufacturer EDO to keep demonstrators away from its factory gates, and by Kent police to arrest a woman who sent an executive at a drugs company two polite emails, begging him not to test his products on animals. In 2001 the peace campaigners Lindis Percy and Anni Rainbow were prosecuted for causing "harassment, alarm or distress" to American servicemen at the Menwith Hill military intelligence base in Yorkshire, by standing at the gate holding the Stars and Stripes and a placard reading "George W Bush? Oh dear!" In Hull a protester was arrested under the act for "staring at a building".

Had Mr Wolfgang said "nonsense" to one of the goons who dragged him out of the conference, he could have been charged under section 125 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which came into force in August. Section 125 added a new definition of harassment to the 1997 act, "a course of conduct ... which involves harassment of two or more persons". What this means is that you need only address someone once to be considered to be harassing them, as long as you have also addressed someone else in the same manner. This provision, in other words, can be used to criminalise any protest anywhere. But when the bill passed through the Commons and the Lords, no member contested or even noticed it.

Section 125 hasn't yet been exercised, but section 132 of the act is already becoming an effective weapon against democracy. This bans people from demonstrating in an area "designated" by the government. One of these areas is the square kilometre around parliament. Since the act came into force, democracy campaigners have been holding a picnic in Parliament Square every Sunday afternoon (see www1.atwiki.com/picnic/). Seventeen people have been arrested so far.

But the law that has proved most useful to the police is the one under which Mr Wolfgang was held: section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This allows them to stop and search people without the need to show that they have "reasonable suspicion" that a criminal offence is being committed. They have used it to put peaceful protesters through hell. At the beginning of 2003, demonstrators against the impending war with Iraq set up a peace camp outside the military base at Fairford in Gloucestershire, from which US B52s would launch their bombing raids. Every day - sometimes several times a day - the protesters were stopped and searched under section 44. The police, according to a parliamentary answer, used the act 995 times, though they knew that no one at the camp was a terrorist. The constant harassment and detention pretty well broke the protesters' resolve. Since then the police have used the same section to pin down demonstrators outside the bomb depot at Welford in Berkshire, at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, at Menwith Hill and at the annual arms fair in London's Docklands.

The police are also rediscovering the benefits of some of our more venerable instruments. On September 10, Keith Richardson, one of the six students convicted of aggravated trespass on Friday, had his stall in Lancaster city centre confiscated under the 1824 Vagrancy Act. "Every Person wandering abroad and endeavouring by the Exposure of Wounds and Deformities to obtain or gather Alms ... shall be deemed a Rogue and Vagabond... " The act was intended to prevent the veterans of the Napoleonic wars from begging, but the police decided that pictures of the wounds on this man's anti-vivisection leaflets put him on the wrong side of the law. In two recent cases, protesters have been arrested under the 1361 Justices of the Peace Act. So much for Mr Blair's 21st century methods.

What is most remarkable is that until Mr Wolfgang was held, neither parliamentarians nor the press were interested. The pressure group Liberty, the Green party, a couple of alternative comedians, the Indymedia network and the alternative magazine Schnews have been left to defend our civil liberties almost unassisted. Even after "Wolfie" was thrown out of the conference, public criticism concentrated on the suppression of dissent within the Labour party, rather than the suppression of dissent throughout the country. As the parliamentary opposition falls apart, the extra-parliamentary one is being closed down with hardly a rumble of protest from the huffers and puffers who insist that civil liberties are Britain's gift to the world. Perhaps they're afraid they'll be arrested.

www.monbiot.com

"I hope you Brits overthrow the facist British monarchy and install an American Style republic with constitutionally protected rights. "

Heaven forbid we adopy an American style system, where wealth counts for so much and the President gets in after blatant legal shenanigans. Where there is massive deprivation of the black minority. Where the post-Katrina analysis shows what a shambles government is.

I could go on, but its not worth the effort. De Gaulle was right about Americans

When a slogan equals terrorism

Marcel Berlins
Monday October 3, 2005
The Guardian

 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1583686,00.html

Legally speaking, Walter Wolfgang's experience at the Labour party conference was even more bizarre than it first seemed. After being forcibly ejected he wanted to get back in but was stopped from doing so by the police, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

I don't believe the police had any legal right to do what they did. I've been reading section 44 and it's absolutely clear that its purpose is to give the police the power to stop and search. Not just to stop someone, full stop. The stopping is only there to lead to the searching.

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But there is nothing I've seen in any of the reports to suggest that Mr Wolfgang was searched. If that's right, then the police were not entitled to use section 44. The whole act, as its title suggests, is specifically aimed at terrorism. Section 45 says that authorisation to carry out a section 44 stop and search "may be exercised only for the purpose of searching for articles of a kind which could be used in connection with terrorism".

So even had a search been authorised and carried out, it would probably have been illegal. Whoever decided to use the Terrorism Act to stop Mr Wolfgang from returning to the hall didn't know what he was doing - but achieved the objective.

Another protesting octogenarian felt the brush of section 44 last week, though he was searched. John Catt was wearing a T-shirt proclaiming "Bush Blair Sharon to be tried for war crimes torture human rights abuse" and, lower down, "the leaders of rogue states".

The stop-and-search form filled out by the police officer stated, under grounds for intervention, "carrying plackard [sic] and T-shirt with anti-Blair info". The purpose of the stop and search was stated as "terrorism". So now we know. For the Sussex police, at any rate, an anti-Blair slogan is a ground for suspecting terrorism.

There is obviously a problem in the use of section 44. It was used prolifically against protesters around the Brighton conference centre. I am sure Sussex are not the only force using section 44 essentially as a tool of control. The police know very well that the vast majority of the people they're stopping have absolutely no hint of a suspicion of any link with terrorism. But the Terrorism Act is all they've got, they argue, to ensure that gatherings like party conferences and G8 meetings go off smoothly.

When Tony Blair and Charles Clarke tell the chief constable of Sussex that they want no trouble at their conference, and if that can only be achieved by wrongly using the anti-terrorism laws to stifle freedom of expression, freedom of movement and the right to protest - tough. That is not the way a democratic state should behave. But don't just blame the police for exceeding their powers. The government is conniving at every stage.

· This is an amazing legal coincidence. After many years - no, make that centuries - in which we have had none at all, we've now got, within a few days of each, two masturbating judges facing justice. One I've mentioned in the past, the Oklahoma judge using a penis pump in court - the giveaway was the loud whooshing sound it made. This week he's on trial for indecent exposure. But now he's got a judicial masturbatory rival, a French judge from Angoulême, Philippe Z, who also performed his solo during a court hearing. He has been suspended from duty and psychiatrists have agreed that he was not responsible for his actions. He has just appeared before the judges' disciplinary body claiming that his suspension was unfair. "I am curable and readaptable," he insisted. "But," he went on in an outburst of honesty, "as what, I don't know."

· In the US, calling someone scuzzy or a scuzzball is pejorative, offensive and denotes an unpleasant low-life kind of person, somewhat akin to an English scumbag. For Demetrius Fiorentino, on trial for murder in West Chester, Pennsylvania, this creates a problem. He's generally known as Scuz, and last week his lawyer tried to persuade the judge to ban the use of that nickname during the trial. He argued that if witnesses kept referring to the defendant as Scuz, it would suggest to the jury that Fiorentino had acquired that name for a reason, and it would prejudice jurors against him. Impossible, riposted the prosecution. The witnesses didn't know him by any other name. They would be unable to give evidence about him unless they could call him Scuz. The judge is thinking about it.

Letters
Terror powers and freedom of speech

Friday October 7, 2005
The Guardian

 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/0,15935,1466850,00.html

A number of your recent articles have made claims about the use of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and, in particular, the way the powers were used with regard to Walter Wolfgang at the Labour party conference. I have made inquiries with Sussex Police about this incident and I understand that they have apologised to Mr Wolfgang. I have been assured that this matter is being reviewed as a matter of urgency.

The powers themselves are an important tool in the ongoing fight against terrorism. The police can use section 44 in support of structured counter-terrorist operations, which includes the security of major events such as party conferences. The powers help to deter all kinds of terrorist activity by creating a hostile environment for would-be terrorists to operate in. There are strict controls on the use of section 44 powers. Its use must be authorised by a chief police officer and confirmed by the secretary of state within 48 hours. The justification for authorising the powers is based on an assessment of the terrorist threat and how this transfers to potential targets within a force area. The powers can not be authorised for public order purposes.

Freedom of speech and legitimate protest are fundamental rights within a democracy, and counterterrorist powers are not intended to curb these rights. It is essential that we strike the right balance between protecting our civil liberties and safeguarding security. Law-enforcement agencies must have appropriate powers available to them and they must be used properly, fairly and consistently.

Hazel Blears MP
Home Office minister

"I have made inquiries with Sussex Police about this incident and I understand that they have apologised to Mr Wolfgang."

Oh right, well that's one apology out of 600 people at the conference who has section 44 used against them. And no apology to the hundreds of other protestors who have been harrassed by the use of this legislation since it was introduced.

"The powers help to deter all kinds of terrorist activity by creating a hostile environment for would-be terrorists to operate in."

And a hostile environment for anyone the police don't like the look of.

"There are strict controls on the use of section 44 powers. Its use must be authorised by a chief police officer and confirmed by the secretary of state within 48 hours. The justification for authorising the powers is based on an assessment of the terrorist threat and how this transfers to potential targets within a force area. The powers can not be authorised for public order purposes."

Except that while there may be 'controls' on the authorisation of the section 44, there seems little control on it's use on the ground, indeed it seems that on some occaisions its use has been routine.

IN A RIGHT STATE
 http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news515.htm

“Through a politics of fear, we are being frightened into abandoning our liberties in the name of protection from terrorist attack. In reality these anti-terror measures make us less secure, bringing us closer to a police state. Now more than ever, everyone is needed to demonstrate their opposition.” - Campaign Against Criminalising Communities

“It’s time to stand up for everyone’s freedom to leaflet, picket, assemble and march against injustice and oppression. Such rights and freedoms have not been handed down by the powers-that-be, but won through struggles over the last 100 years or more.” – Freedom To Protest Conference (see below).

Last week 600 people were stopped and searched in Brighton under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, during the Labour Party Conference in Brighton. According to the Home Office, “Stop and search under Section 44 is an important tool in the on-going fight against terrorism” and that the use of the powers was “intelligence-led and based on an assessment of the threat against the UK.” But with 600 searches and no terrorists arrested, SchNEWS reckon that’s a pretty poor level of intelligence. So for four days we got a taste of what black and Muslim communities have been experiencing for years.

The widespread use of the Terrorism Act to stifle dissent has only come to media attention thanks to the silencing of 82 year old Walter Wolfgang during Jack Straw’s speech at the party conference. Wolfgang’s unprompted ad-lib ruined the Neo-Labour choreographed political theatre production. So he was thrown out and then detained for a search under Section 44 to stop him getting back in. Sussex Police apologised to him of course - but only because they were getting grief for it in the Daily Mail. The other 599 searched can get stuffed. What the public got was a glimpse of something that SchNEWS has been banging on about for years.

Without hammering home the obvious, Section 44 has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, it’s just another tool the cops can use to push people back into line – people who have the wrong ideas about democracy or who live in a community under suspicion. But it’s not like the Terrorism Act is the only thing that police have been using to batter anyone who protests over the past few years. From Anti-Social Behaviour Orders to the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 etc etc. New laws have been enacted and old laws dusted off and reviewed to snuff out dissent. Any gathering of two or more people can be made subject to police control under a recent (2003) modification of the 1981 Public Order Act - and still they want more.

Laws are coming in that will not just hinder free movement and assembly but will firmly infringe on freedom of speech. The government proposes to make the ‘glorification of terrorism’ - (whatever that means) a criminal offence. That has serious implications for anyone writing about why our society finds itself at war.

Here’s a snapshot of the 21st century liberty clampdown:

* Injunctions under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 creating exclusion zones around vivisection labs and arms factories. Examples include Smash EDO’s campaign against Brighton arms manufacturer EDO-MBM (www.smashedo.org.uk), (where two protesters face prison for breaching the injunction) and several animal rights groups including Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (www.shac.net) and Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs (not that it stopped them winning! see SchNEWS 509)

* Sections 145 & 146 of the Serious Organised Crime Act 2005 specifically criminalised protest outside ‘animal research’ facilities. Seven people are awaiting trial on this offence.

* In 2003 when RAF Fairford was used as a launch base for bombing raids on Iraq, cops used Section 44 powers on demonstrators 995 times, with some people being searched multiple times.

* This September, six students and graduates of Lancaster University – the George Fox 6 - were convicted of “aggravated trespass” – for handing out leaflets at a corporate/academia cosy-up on the campus featuring suits from BAE Systems, Shell, GlaxoSmithKline, et al gathered to talk about how to “commercialise university research”. So handing out a leaflet is now ‘disruption’.

* Gate Gourmet workers are attacked under Thatcher-era Trade Union Laws (See SchNEWS 510).

* The government can now declare exclusion zones at will with Section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime Act. Since August 1st this year when the law came into force, the square kilometre around parliament has become such an exclusion zone, with all protests without prior police permission banned. Regular ‘picnics’ are being held there to hamper the law, with seventeen arrested so far, but the snacking goes on. (see  http://www1.atwiki.com/picnic)

From ASBOs to Guantanamo… if you wanted to list all the infringements of civil liberties by UK Plc in the last ten years you’d have to write a book.

But the fight back for civil liberties is gaining momentum. Activists and communities have always resisted repressive laws and now coalitions of those most affected by this repression are being built. As the Freedom to Protest conference organisers say “We believe that oppressive laws can be made unworkable by determination and solidarity among those affected, by mass defiance, and by turning the tables on those who would try to silence and suppress dissent.”

*Top legal advice for all activists freeB.E.A.G.L.E.S.  http://www.freebeagles.org
Freedom To Protest Conference

Sharing experiences, and promoting mutual aid & co-ordination between protestors threatened by repressive laws and to develop effective strategies for standing up for our freedom to protest The Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Road, London, N7. October 23rd, 11am-5pm. To get involved in the conference contact them – see  http://www.freedomtoprotest.org.uk