parliament square permanent demos legislation

there have been various promises, and big media stories based on no more than a sentence or two from a dodgy peer - or recent big stories based on a quote by housing minister grant schapps for example, but finally there are some bones on the story that the con-dem government is serious about removing brian haw's 10-year protest from parliament square.

parliament.uk have published a proposed "police reform and social responsibility bill' for consideration. read more ...

Socpa Protest 2008 (rikki)

it is unclear whether the proposed legislation could go ahead without interfering with rights under the human rights act, but it's possible that human rights will be eroded by this government too, so the proposal is certainly a serious one.

part 3 section 141 of the new bill is called 'prohibited activities in the controlled area of parliament square' and it very specifically targets tents, or any structures designed or adapted for sleeping. it also avoids the pitfall that the 2005 socpa act met, by explicitly stating that the law can and will apply to any structures used or erected before the passing of the bill. (brian haw pointed out that the socpa law couldn't apply to him as he couldn't possibly give six days notice of the start of his protest as it started back in 2001, 5 years before the law!). the new law bans sleeping bags or any other items designed to facilitate sleeping.

the law also prohibits the use of any loudspeaker or amplifying equipment without permission - again, this is an area of socpa that brian has successfully challenged.

various promises to repeal socpa have been broken. gordon brown promised to do it within 100 days of taking office.

police have been very selective in their application of the socpa laws, often using it to harrass and intimidate brian and his supporters, while turning a blind eye to other major challenges. police didn't enforce socpa during the large scale sri lankan protests, and they also surprisingly failed to use it during the long occupation by the democracy village (eventually the village was evicted using westminster bye-laws instead).

at present, to my knowledge (apologies to anyone i have left out) there are two 24 hour continuous protests in parliament square. first, brian's anti-iraq war and anti-depleted uranium weapons protest, (although currently his supporters are holding the fort for his ten year long protest as he is in hospital across the river), and second, maria gallestegui's 'peace strike' protests, although she herself is currently opposite downing street as the 'white flag revolution' campaign against any attack on iran, and calling for the troops to come home from afghanistan.

but police, who have powers under socpa, have turned a blind eye to a dozen or more rough sleepers who have erected tents around the edge of the square, and politicians see the "mess" of tents and are easily persuaded by the apparent simplicity and reasonableness of legislation like this.

this bill effectively outlaws a 24-hour one-person protest, and therefore would appear to infringe the rights of that one person, through sleep deprivation. the law looks so precisely constructed to remove brian haw, it stops him from using a megaphone, it stops him sleeping there, it provides the court with the means to first fine him, then remove his tent and megaphone, and finally to ban him from the square - these are all the precise legal issues that have been fought over for years, including the still open issue that the seizure of his banners on 23rd may 2006 was in fact unlawful and they should be returned.

brian has lost some of his supporters over the years, and although i wrote countless indymedia reports in support of him in the past, we have lost touch. but his profile is still huge around the world, far greater than in the uk, and his message of peace, and and his challenge over the use of depleted uranium, with the scandal of hidden evidence and repressed research into health effects, is important and far-sighted. i know that some in the london activist community see him as an irrelevance, but there are two points i'd like to make.

first, i am reminded of an r.d. laing quote that "insanity is the only sane response to an insane society", and while people go about their normal lives as their government rains bombs down on civilians abroad, then perhaps the sanest of people are the ones who scream, shout, cajole, and ask over and over "what are you doing about it?". brian's frustration and anger with the apathy and ignorance of passers-by, other activists, the police and the politicians, has lost him support and friends, but maybe he's the sane one in this context after all.

second, a right lost for one person is an erosion of all our rights. why the hell shouldn't we hold 24-hour protests and shout and harangue our MPs, given their spineless, corrupt, undemocratic, abuses of power? do we really want to see some privileged peer get away with contructing a law merely to remove a sight that offends his personal view of how his town square should look, while he votes to carry on bombing the hell out of civilians and destroying their town squares in distant lands?

whatever people's views of brian and others, i hope that if this law gets anywhere close to passing, we will see protests and direct challenges like those against socpa but on an even larger scale. protest is our right, and we should be able to do it wherever we like and for however long we like. if we want to give up our normal lives to peacefully protest to bring soldiers home and stop the killing, we should be allowed to sleep on the job. the people targetted by this new law have given up everything because they believe human life is more important than a cosy home, three good meals a day, or any of the comforts of modern life.

this law is an assault on everyone's rights. it is the legalised version of the sun-reader/white van driver uneducated jeer - "get a job". these protestors have very important jobs - 24 hour jobs - screaming out against murder and genocide. they've given up their homes to do this job and they should be allowed to sleep when needed.

incidentally, also like socpa, this proposed bill seems to be a mish-mash of unsavoury bits of legislation under one bizarre banner. further down, section 151 appears to be the law enshrining the "letting off war criminals who have committed genocide or other crimes against humanity, especially if they are israeli" act. this section prevents private prosecutions and so, citizen's arrests, and embarrassment for the government when foreign fascists come to visit.

watch this law - keep an eye on its progress, and fight it. it is an assault on justice.

Contact email: rikkiindymedia(At)gmail[dot]com