Sussex Police seem to think there is no right to protest in this country - only a privilege that may or may not be granted. In fact, outside a few defined areas such as around Parliament, people DO NOT need police permission to march in protest at anything in this country.

Last Saturday Brighton police individually filmed everyone on a march in Brighton because they 'believed' that some people on the march were violently anti-Semitic (see film on link) - complete crap of course. It was a small, peaceful march causing less disruption than your average stag party and enjoyed and supported by many bystanders.

The police will say this is about health and safety and preventing disruption to others. But the police alone determine the extent to which they believe a march will cause disruption, with no evidence made public and no right of appeal, something that breaches the marchers' human rights as defined in British law.

The police also, quite clearly, do not give added weight to the fact that these marches are expressions of free speech, as they should in a genuine democracy that encourages political involvement of citizens. In fact they clearly give less weight to the right to protest than to what they decide to be the rights of other people - in the case of the march in Brighton on Saturday, the rights of Jewish people to me protected by a completely fictitious threat from the march. Many of the people on the march were Jewish...

I wonder if PC MacDonald would like to answer these points.

What he means is;

I would therefore urge the event organiser to make contact with us so that he/she can be held personally responsible for any behaviour that the police take offence to during the demonstration, however petty. The organiser then can and will be arrested for any offences committed by others at the demonstration.


Why don't they just tell the truth?

Well, that's not in their book is it.

to prosecute people for organising an unauthorised protest? as if their hilariously backfired attempts at repression haven't stirred up a hornets nest of resistance already. go on coppers, make some martyrs ...

been following this EDO protest from the onset, and I realise the police have put up obstacle after obstacle.... but this whole cat and mouse game it one big DISTRACTION.

as long as they keep you occupied with your anti-police to and fro... your aim is blurred and lost.

why can't you give them what they want - it's actually what they want least of all... give them a route, give them everything they need and get on with enlightening the masses about the murderers on their doorstep.

what if... for instant, the protest takes a spontaneous turn down one of the narrow lanes, by coincidence a fire break out in a shop, people get trapped, people die. The police get sued, and you lose every last drop of credibilty you ever had....EDO, well, up go the stock prices, up goes the carnage and a bottle of champers for all at the xmas party...

your stealing your own right to protest.

"why can't you give them what they want - it's actually what they want least of all... give them a route, give them everything they need and get on with enlightening the masses about the murderers on their doorstep."

well, everytime somebody puts themselves forwards as an organiser, they get harassed to fuck by the cops and then the march gets section 12/14'ed anyway as as it makes contact with the public (leafleters getting thrown into cordons by cops etc).

Its a bit far-fetched to say a crowd in a street is somehow responsible for deaths from a hypothetical unrelated fire - from what i've seen on demos eg when ambulances need to get thru, the crowd would disperse and/or assist - that is unless the cops had cordonned it in.

How are the police going to know where and when coincidental fires might break out? How does a spontanious change in direction of a march start a fire? Are these protesters all raving arsonists who will burn down the first thing they see, the minute the police are not looking? How come EDO's factory has not been burned down in the last two years?

Compare priorities...

1.Protesters want to defend the freedom of movement, assembly, and free association, without the control of the state.

2.Sussex Police are afraid of being sued, so they will throw just as much money away overpolicing the protests instead.

Now what is more important I wonder?

> It is a requirement of Section 11 of the Public Order Act 1986 that organisers of assemblies
> or processions should give notice to Police. No such notification has been received.

Section 11 only applies to processions, no notification is ever required for assemblies and it has no basis in law.

It could also be argued that past police harassment means it is "not reasonably practicable to give any advance notice of the procession."