Mass lone demo breaks Guinness Book of Records

mini mouse | 21.04.2007 19:48 | SOCPA | London

"According to the Home Office there have been 1,379 demonstrations authorised under SOCPA in 18 months (1 Aug 2005 - Dec 2006). With your help we'd like to attempt to hold 2,000 demonstrations in a day!"

So reads the splurge on the Mark Thomas website (

http://www.markthomasinfo.com/) Today's efforts alone totalled 2294, breaking, according to Mark, the challenge set by records administrators.

Well it was a bit of fun all round with participants arriving from all over the country, converging on Parliament Square for a 10.30 start and a 5.20 finale. Their protests were diverse, ranging from less packaging in Tesco's to abolishing the monarchy to equal rights for Welsh dragons.

But the real purpose was to highlight the absurdity of an act that only allows state sanctioned protest. Every one protesting today was legal because 2294 individual applications had been processed by the police. To protest without this permission would incur criminal prosecution leading to a penalty - if you were "the organiser" - of up to 51 weeks in jail.

Activists have protested against the act since August 2005 and there have been many arrests and serious and violent police harassment of several targeted individuals. A timeline is published and regularly updated at

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/socpa/ and it makes for shocking reading.

Thomas conceived the absurdity of the Mass Lone Protest back in July 2006 (

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/07/345314.html) but really caught the public's imagination with a BBC radio broadcast earlier this month. As one participant - a first time protester - put it, "it really shows the power of the personality". There's no doubt that actions such as this are bringing the putting this repressive act into a public spotlight.

The danger, conversely is that it can be seen as just a bit of fun. Today might well be hijacked and produced as evidence by Blair's goons that protest is alive and well, and that ordinary decent people are welcome to visit the seat of government and say just about anything they want.

Extremists and terrorists, they'll claim, are the only ones with any reason to fear the law.

Indeed, on 7 April 2002 Blair made a speech to the George Bush Presidential Library.

"When I pass protestors every day at Downing Street, and believe me, you name it, they protest against it, I may not like what they call me, but I thank God they can.That's called freedom."

Remember those words as you check out "extremists" Steve Jago and Barbara Tucker.

In this video (

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2006/06//343060.mp4) Steve is arrested for quoting George Orwell.

And in this video:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2006/07//344853.mp4 both Barbara and Steve stand outside Downing Street, only to be violently arrested and carted away in front of horrified tourists.

This is the everyday reality of SOCPA. These aren't terrorists, these aren't extremists, they're just ordinary people protesting against things the state won't permit.

Believe me, that's not what you call freedom.

mini mouse
e-mail: mini_mouse@riseup.net

Additions

more police rule-bending

22.04.2007 00:33

i spoke to one of the participants and they told me about the notification they'd received for their 20 applications for demonstrations in 20 locations on 20 different issues. it was just one letter. it referred to "various demonstrations".

so, it seems the police are once again showing their true political colours.

they get round the socpa law by sending out a single letter to cover twenty demos when it's mark thomas's bit of fun, but the real peace protestors continue to be hounded through court on technicalities.

cf barbara tucker, who notified police of her single ongoing demonstration more than a year ago. while the police accepted a notification from someone else last year iced on a large cake (as per the law "in writing"), they believe that barbara's notification, by email, doesn't comply with the law. and though they accept twenty different notifications for demos on different subjects in twenty locations, and treat it as one, they claim barbara's single issue demo in the socpa zone "at any time until this government goes" is not a proper notification and so they can't authorise it.

well, i don't think they can have it both ways, and indeed it seems they might not, too. their socpa prosecutions of barbara roll on and on and have never yet been tested in court. instead they've tried to imprison her for all sorts of other offences - so far with spectacular lack of success, and they've even tried to section her under the mental health act on two occasions (again unsuccessfully, mainly owing to the fact that despite their continual harassment and intimidation of her she remains astonishingly sane).

eventually, the courts will show barbara right, and socpa will be defeated, but in the meantime, these fun games just show up the police partisanship more and more clearly.

rikki
mail e-mail: rikkiindymedia@googlemail.com

Two more pics.

22.04.2007 04:27

Low police presence at start, in front of the tourists, but I heard they were hassling individual protesters after they had left the square.

Doug

The police

22.04.2007 10:36

There were hardly any police around. The only ones I encountered were at Downing Street and New Scotland Yard. And they have never been so friendly and welcoming to protestors!!!! Actually there was one misery who told me off for walking on the road near the Cenotaph but he obviously hadn't been ordered to join in the 'fun' and not cause us trouble like the rest had apparently been told.

Mischeif

No hassle by police

22.04.2007 16:13

We had no hassle by the Police on the way round - they all seemed to think it was a bit of fun. We took to stopping them and INSISTING they check our authorisations.

Cardinal Fang

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

rotterdam or rome

21.04.2007 22:28

You've used the same blonde model twice ! I doubt you will get in the Guinness Book of Records given Marks previous 'Pro-IRA(1916)' demo and given Ross McWhirters politics and death.

"it really shows the power of the personality"
I'm unsure if this fact is a good or a bad quote from an anarchist perspective. Mark was a fast-talking 'dick-joke' comedian on crappy comedy TV shows for most of his life. Scared shitless of taking direct action. And now he is the closest thing we have to a 'leader of the opposition'. If nothing else, he is proof we can all turn our lives around.

I hope he would agree with me, a better quote would have been "it really shows the power of the individual will when linked with a motor-mouth without an off-switch".

Well done Mark and everyone else, but don't be smug, there is more needs done that you could achieve.

all good things,

danny

I'm a traitor?

23.04.2007 12:31

During my protest to introduce "Pink camouflage and balloon guns" into the army the cadets marched past rather proudly.
A (what I think) was a seniour military.. guy.. walked right close to my cheek and said rather loudly and sternly into my ear "You are a fucking traitor!" and off he was.

Aside from this I had no hassle during the entire day, probably the second most fun I've ever had at a protest!
=)

Shaz

Reactions

24.04.2007 10:38

I got poked in the gizzard by some old geeza and called a traitor for having a sign that said 'abolish the royal family'. Two other people started rowing with me over that one as well!

Whilst outside the Falkland Islands building I was told I was sick for holding a sign that said 'make the day Maggie dies a national holiday'.

It was bloody good fun but I agree that the old bill were on their best behaviour- except when it came to harrassing Barbara outside Downing Street. She wasn't intimidated though.

Met some good people. Keep it up!

bitofrocknroll

Kollektives

London Topics

Major Coverage

Other IMCs