up to 100 people attended the democracy rally in london yesterday afternoon. as boris was suddenly using trafalgar square, the rally moved to the much more convivial st james park, where speakers spoke, musicians played, people's assemblies discussed, and bridges got built. at the end of the afternoon, some of the attendees marched to parliament square and later reclaimed the grass and took down some fences.

the democracy rally had been planned and advertised for many weeks. organisers were told by the GLA that no events were planned for yesterday's date, and at such short notice, a booking would be unlikely.

while the democracy rally team refused to comply with restrictions and legislation governing the use of trafalgar square, they were open about what they were planning. against all odds, with only ten days to go, the GLA suddenly announced an 'african weekender', and on the day they laid on lots of security, and a system of barricaded entrances, to stop any democracy rally from occuring.

still, the rally folk were prepared, with a huge hard-to-miss 'info point' banner and no shortage of volunteers to redirect people, and after some preliminaries on the charles I island south of nelson's collumn, the rally moved into st james' park, where it's presence officially broke several park bye-laws.

people came and went during the afternoon, and at times there were up to a hundred involved. under the autumn leaves of majestic horse chestnut trees, they listened to speakers including mafeez mosaddeq ahmed, (author of 'a user's guide to the crisis of civilisation, and how to save it'), pheonix (from democracy village), john armstrong (land tax campaigner) and peter tatchell (human rights activist), among many others.

there were also a few spiritual moments, including a circle of held hands and a few minutes of the universal 'om' chant, which seemed much better suited to the glorious park than it would have been in trafalgar square.

the rally then split off into several smaller zones for discussion, including 'peace' (the largest), 'economy', 'climate and environment' and 'justice'. this model of people's assemblies worked well, when after an hour everyone reconvened and spokespersons summed up for the crowd what each group had discussed and proposed.

park police occasionally passed by, but it was clear the assembly was going to be tolerated, even when a sound system arrived and several performers, including maya and radfax, sang and played.

as the sun began to fade, food was shared and then a proposal was made to march to parliament square and join another group ('united against injustice') campaigning against a new and very unjust 'joint enterprise' law, which was designed to convict individuals who encourage others to commit crime on their behalf, but has led to various miscarriages of justice and unsafe convictions in very serious cases.

there, what with the two crowds, along with brian haw's ten-year campaign, and the peace strike campaign, this began to look like real democracy.

the only thing spoiling the show was of course the huge fence all around parliament square to prevent any protests from "stopping ordinary members of the public from enjoying the square", by, er, preventing everyone from using the square except for a group of 24-hour security guards who sit around all day every day at taxpayer's expense.

and so, some original villagers, and some new rally attendees, decided to challenge the fence and reclaim the square. (full report at http://london.indymedia.org.uk/articles/5649)

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