No charges brought against Big Ben anti war activists.
For immediate release 2nd April, 2004.
It was announced this morning that no charges will be brought against Greenpeace climbers Harry and Simon Westaway for climbing Big Ben. The brothers climbed Big Ben on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and unfurled banners stating ‘Time for the Truth’. (1)
A Greenpeace spokesperson said, “We are very happy that no charges are being brought against Harry and Simon for their peaceful anti-war protest at Big Ben. They climbed Big Ben to express their strongly held belief that the war against Iraq was wrong and illegal”.
They continued, “The time was chosen as it was the anniversary of the war, and the location because this was where Tony Blair lied to Parliament over the legality of the war, the real motivation behind it, and the intelligence used to support those arguments. The action put no-one at risk and caused no damage. It fits with the British tradition of taking non-violent direct action to express strongly held beliefs”.
Harry Westaway said, “We climbed Big Ben to urge Tony Blair to come clean about why he went to war against Iraq. It clearly wasn’t because of WMD, as none have been found. It clearly went against the will of the United Nations and was illegal under international law. It has only increased the threat to Britain from international terrorism. Finally it was clearly without the support of the UK public who came out in unprecedented numbers to urge him not to take us to war.
“One year on we urge him to come clean, admit his mistakes and commit to never undertake an illegal pre-emptive war in Britain’s name ever again”.
“We also would like to say that criticism of the police over their response to the tower being climbed is in our view misplaced. We feel their reaction was responsible and proportionate. There is a well established tradition of freedom of speech and peaceful protest in the UK. The police did not take action against the climbers as both were clearly identified as Greenpeace. Furthermore, onsite police and security were given full details by Greenpeace officials of who the climbers were and what their intention was as soon as the climb began.”
ENDS
EDITOR’S NOTES:
(1) The brothers were told that no charges will be brought against them after attending Charing Cross police station this morning.
For more information contact the Greenpeace press office on 0207 865 8255.
For immediate release 2nd April, 2004.
It was announced this morning that no charges will be brought against Greenpeace climbers Harry and Simon Westaway for climbing Big Ben. The brothers climbed Big Ben on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and unfurled banners stating ‘Time for the Truth’. (1)
A Greenpeace spokesperson said, “We are very happy that no charges are being brought against Harry and Simon for their peaceful anti-war protest at Big Ben. They climbed Big Ben to express their strongly held belief that the war against Iraq was wrong and illegal”.
They continued, “The time was chosen as it was the anniversary of the war, and the location because this was where Tony Blair lied to Parliament over the legality of the war, the real motivation behind it, and the intelligence used to support those arguments. The action put no-one at risk and caused no damage. It fits with the British tradition of taking non-violent direct action to express strongly held beliefs”.
Harry Westaway said, “We climbed Big Ben to urge Tony Blair to come clean about why he went to war against Iraq. It clearly wasn’t because of WMD, as none have been found. It clearly went against the will of the United Nations and was illegal under international law. It has only increased the threat to Britain from international terrorism. Finally it was clearly without the support of the UK public who came out in unprecedented numbers to urge him not to take us to war.
“One year on we urge him to come clean, admit his mistakes and commit to never undertake an illegal pre-emptive war in Britain’s name ever again”.
“We also would like to say that criticism of the police over their response to the tower being climbed is in our view misplaced. We feel their reaction was responsible and proportionate. There is a well established tradition of freedom of speech and peaceful protest in the UK. The police did not take action against the climbers as both were clearly identified as Greenpeace. Furthermore, onsite police and security were given full details by Greenpeace officials of who the climbers were and what their intention was as soon as the climb began.”
ENDS
EDITOR’S NOTES:
(1) The brothers were told that no charges will be brought against them after attending Charing Cross police station this morning.
For more information contact the Greenpeace press office on 0207 865 8255.
Comments
Hide the following 10 comments
Aims
02.04.2004 13:10
Does it make the general public change their mind ? I am concerned we always justify these things with the claim of "raising awareness".
The fact that the Police behaved as they did speaks volumes for the effect the Establishment felt it would have .
Tony Filling
the aims were met
02.04.2004 15:00
popular british opposition to the war. Millions will have seen the pictures and footage
and read the press reports. It brought no harm to anyone and yet said something
loud and clear that the world needs to hear.What else do you want from it?
*
That's bollocks, mate...
02.04.2004 15:01
The fact is, it was these guys with their innovative and amusing (not to mention brave) stunt that put the anti-war protest on the media radar that day. The actual protest march was tiny, and would've gone unnoticed if it wasn't for the Big Ben action.
I'd hazard a guess you are in the SWP, and like all the others who share your party's group brain have an irrational prejudice against all direct action.
Get over it - they done good.
yawn....
big up the Big Ben protests!
02.04.2004 15:34
-
Just a second there !!!
02.04.2004 15:51
There is no downer on the people involved who did a great job but as I said the Police did nothing which says a lot, if it had been thought this was a real influencer they would have been there straight away (and let's not pretend the "Police were powerless to act against the heroic Greenpeace heroes" or any of that rubbish)
Tony Filling
Tony Tony Tony
02.04.2004 17:38
If they had they would have stopped it. Once two people are hundreds of feet
up a clocktower what are you going to do but wait for them to come down.
You seem to suufere from the delusion that the govt and police and the secret services
know everything about everyone and all their plans. This is a myth that
helps the govt by making everyone paranoid like you and unable to take any action because
they absolutely expect it to be stopped.
futile logic runs; anything I might do that could change anything will be stopped before i can do it-anthing I manage to do has not been stopped because the government sees no harm in it for them and so it wont change anything.
finally-being broadcast across the planet in every media out there is not just preaching to the converted unless you think every reader viewer of every newspaper tv station is already converted. Since the war mongering is continuing this is clearly not the case.
If you think all such direct action is pointless you are not the 'US' I am part of.
*
the point is...
02.04.2004 18:20
The establishment claim that they are spending millions on anti terrorism measures, and waffle on about their constant state of readiness and all that blah, so what happens -
a couple of bods stroll in , climb the westminster tower and stick as banner up under the noses of hundreds of armed police
Whatever the point of the action it clearly made the Met & all the security bods at Westrminster look a right bunch of muppets and highlighted the fact they are totally unprepared for most occurrences.
gnome
Nothing to do with SWP it was a Greenpeace funraising scam
02.04.2004 21:15
fair play to the two brothers but as to what it actually achieved well phoney didn't come clean .
The war is still going on even though Bushit declared it to be over about 400 dead marines ago.
Basically Greenpeace are the acceptable side of Activism there tolerated cos really they are not going to
hurt the corporate bankers. Also with dodgy links to Mi5 and co ..
Greenpeace do publicity stunts so that people will donate to them and buy over priced T shirts and mugs, and other standard gift shop shit .
Greenpeace International have their HQ in Amsterdam and it seems to be staffed by snotty middle class people
with no morals who will later going and work with daddy at the family bank .
If you think that Greenpeace UK Greenpeace Italy is the pits they seem more interested in protecting their corporate logo and franchising all their crap products very rarely do shit ..
Green Piss
That's right Green Piss
05.04.2004 10:56
yeah yeah, so greenpeace like many other ngo's are concerned with their image, get over it, they still rock when it comes to actions, and actions which inspire a lot of people, and actions which show direct action big time in the media.
well done to those climbers and good to hear they're not being charged.
wonder just what equipment they used so that they didnt damage the clocktower?
ardcore
Diversionary Propaganda
06.04.2004 12:47
Prajña
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