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Showstoppers

JamieSW — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 19:29:58 +0000

AS POLICE SEEK TO AXE ANTI-ARMS TRADE MOVIE

Yet another below the belt blow to civil liberties was struck by the Sussex Plod this Monday. The long-awaited world premier of SchMOVIES ‘On The Verge’ – the cinematic debut of the Smash Edo campaign – was cancelled after police intervention. In the days that followed, across the country venues due to show the film on the forthcoming tour have received visits from the police and licensing authorities keen to stop screenings.

Early on Monday evening, the SchNEWS crew were squeezing into our tuxedoes and ballgowns ready for the red carpet reception at local independent cinema the Duke of York’s (DoY). But barely had the first champagne cork been popped when we received a call to tell us the show was cancelled. The cinema had been contacted at 4.15pm by environmental health officer, Martin New, claiming that as the film does not have an official BBFC classification, the DoY would be in breach of their licence if the screening went ahead. The timing left the cinema with no option but to cancel. According to one source, the police then phoned the cinema and warned them that they should “bolt the doors” as these protesters were “extremely violent” and likely to try and force entry! One manager said the decision to question the film’s classification this way “was virtually unprecedented in my experience”.

Yer ever-good-in-a-crisis SchNEWS crew swiftly relocated the showing to a local pub, where around 140 people (over two screenings) were able to watch the ‘illicit’ film.

THE PLOD THICKENS

The next day, local rag the Argus ran the story as front page news: “Anti-war movie banned by council at the last minute”. They quoted top cop Chief Inspector Lawrence Taylor denying any police involvement in the sting, saying, “We would never get involved with the certification of a film – it is not something we do. It was as much a surprise to us as anyone else”. Well it must have then come as a real surprise when, the next day, B&H council’s press office confirmed that the police had in fact called them up and prompted their action.

Swiftly back-tracking, Sussex Police pinned the blame on a mysterious ‘junior officer’ (and inadvertently admitted they don’t bother knowing the law regarding showing films!): “Brighton and Hove Police were aware that ‘On The Verge’ was being shown at the Duke of York cinema. However, we do not become involved in, nor do we have knowledge of, the law relating to film certification. That is a matter for Brighton & Hove City Council. However, a junior officer, who is not based in the city, alerted the city council to the showing and they advised the cinema of its responsibilities.”. So either Lawrence Taylor was lying or his rank-and-file are showing a little more initiative than usual.

Whoever the ‘junior officer’ is, it seems she/he’s been pretty busy organising a coordinated clampdown on the film. By this afternoon venues due to show the film across the country were receiving visits from the police. Staff at the Arthouse Community Cafe in Bedford Place, Southampton were approached at 11am by police and licensing officers. Threats were made concerning their licensing if the film, due to be shown on Thursday night was screened. Jani Franck of the Community Cafe said, “I grew up in South Africa and this feels awfully familiar. This has nothing to do with protecting the public – this is nothing but censorship”.

As SchNEWS goes to press, the first tour venues in Bath, Southampton, Oxford and Chichester have all been visited and leaned on to pull the plug.

Classifications for similar independent films are not normally an issue – especially for private showings where no money changes hands (and with official BBFC certifications costing up to a grand, it would kill any local independent no-budget film making). Given that there is no swearing or nudity in the film, and that the only violence in the film is at the hands of Sussex police, offences against public morals are unlikely. But in an unusual bout of sensitivity towards the public, police decided that although it’s OK to violently attack protesters, it might disturb members of the public were they to see it on film.

Steve Bishop of SchMovies told us exclusively “We’re not exactly surprised by the police action. Yeah, the film doesn’t have a certificate but since when has this applied to productions with a budget of under five hundred quid! What next, a PG certificate for yer wedding video? The only reason they want to ban this is ‘cuz it shows ‘em in a bad light.”

Want to see the film they tried (are trying) to ban? People are re-arranging showings in many of the towns – for more info check out www.smashedo.org.uk or local Indymedia postings.

Interested in putting on a screening, e-mail: on-the-verge@hotmail.co.uk

View the trailer at www.schnews.org.uk/schmovies/index-on-the-verge

Labour Government Gags “Extraordinary Renditions” Whistleblower

Ellie Keen — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:16:37 +0000

Last Friday, the Labour government took out a high court injunction to prevent a former member of the British Special Air Services, Ben Griffin, from revealing further details about the government’s involvement in “extraordinary rendition”

The US administration coined the term to cover the practice of sending arrested terrorist suspects to dozens of detention facilities where torture is often carried out. Ever since reports of rendition and torture began to surface after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001, the British government has adamantly denied any knowledge or collaboration with these activities.

In his last public address before the gagging order came into force, Griffin told an antiwar rally, “I will be continuing to collect evidence and opinion on British involvement in extraordinary rendition, torture, secret detentions, extra-judicial detention, use of evidence gained through torture, breaches of the Geneva Conventions, breaches of International Law and failure to abide by our obligations as per UN Convention Against Torture. I am carrying on regardless.”

He called for former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown to face trial for breaking international law.

Griffin served in the army for eight years, including a three-month tour in Baghdad working on secret joint operations with US Special Forces. He quit in 2005 because he believed the war was illegal and aimed at seizing control of the natural resources in the region.

He is strongly opposed to the tactics being employed by US occupation forces, including indiscriminate detention of people, a trigger-happy mentality among soldiers and routine torture of prisoners that is advocated through the chain of command. Although he had not witnessed torture first-hand, Griffin said, “I have no doubt in my mind that non-combatants I personally detained were handed over to the Americans and subsequently tortured.”

The secret joint US-UK task force within which he was posted was “responsible for the detention of hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

He added: “British soldiers are intimately involved in the actions of this task force. Jack Straw, Margaret Beckett, David Miliband, Geoff Hoon, Des Browne, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown—in their respective positions over the last five years they must know that British soldiers have been operating within this joint US/UK task force. They must have been briefed on the actions of this unit.”

The gagging order was placed under the Official Secrets Act, which has been used repeatedly since the war began to silence critics of the occupations within the civil service and armed forces on grounds of “national security.” If he makes further disclosures relating to renditions that implicate government ministers in war crimes, he could face a jail sentence.

The Foreign Office refused to comment on the allegations on the grounds that statements are never released on the activities of Special Forces soldiers.

When allegations about the government’s involvement in extraordinary rendition first surfaced in December 2005, Blair told the press, “I have absolutely no evidence to suggest that anything illegal has been happening here at all, and I am not going to start ordering inquiries into this, that and the next thing, when I have got no evidence to show whether this is right or not. And I honestly, it is like all this stuff about camps in Europe or something, I don’t know, I have never heard of such a thing, I can’t tell you whether such a thing exists.”

And again, in March 2007, Blair assured an intelligence and security committee that “he was satisfied that the US had at no time since 9/11 rendered an individual through the UK or through our Overseas Territories.”

This position became increasingly untenable as leaks from individuals within the armed forces, such as those from Griffin and former United States Army General Barry McCaffrey, as well as numerous civil servants, conflicted with official government denials.

Responding to allegations that Britain was co-operating with renditions to the UK protectorate of Diego Garcia, an Indian ocean island that is leased to the US as an air base for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in September 2003, “The United States Government have explicitly assured us that there have never been any prisoners in detention on any US vessels moored in Diego Garcia waters. The British Government are satisfied that this is correct.”

In December 2006, McCaffrey revealed that he knew of renditions to the base. He said of suspected terrorists, “They’re behind bars, they’re dead, they’re apprehended. We’ve got them on Diego Garcia, in Bagram Airfield, in Guantanamo.”

According to a report from the civil rights group Statewatch, “Diego Garcia has been the subject of repeated, credible and concurrent claims that the island has played a major role in the US system of renditions and secret detention.”

The mounting evidence culminated in the government being forced to make limited admissions, whilst attempting to distance itself as far as possible from the US practice of renditions and torture. A carefully worded statement to parliament on February 21 by Foreign Secretary David Miliband said that Britain had recently been made aware of two US extraordinary rendition flights, which had stopped at Diego Garcia in 2002 to refuel.

Miliband said, “Contrary to earlier explicit assurances that Diego Garcia had not been used for rendition flights, recent US investigations have now revealed two occasions, both in 2002, when this had in fact occurred. An error in the earlier US records search meant that these cases did not come to light.”

He went on to spell out that the US and UK policy on counter-terrorism will continue as before: “Our counter-terrorism relationship with the United States is vital to UK security. I am absolutely clear that there must and will continue to be the strongest possible intelligence and counter-terrorism relationship with the US, consistent with UK law and our international obligations.”

It was Miliband’s evasions and denials about UK involvement in rendition that prompted Griffin to issue a statement a few days later. He pointed out that the government always talks about rendition as purely the process of flying detainees to a foreign country in the hope of deflecting attention away from the British Army’s vital role in the first stages of the process in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said the Diego Garcia admission “pales into insignificance in light of the fact that it has been British soldiers detaining the victims of extraordinary rendition in the first place.”

“Since the invasion of Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001 UKSF [United Kingdom Special Forces] has operated within a joint US/UK Task Force. This Task Force has been responsible for the detention of hundreds if not thousands of individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq. Individuals detained by British soldiers within this Task Force have ended up in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, Bagram Theatre Internment Facility, Balad Special Forces Base, Camp Nama BIAP and Abu Ghraib Prison.”

“Whilst the government has stated its desire that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp be closed, it has remained silent over these other secretive prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. These secretive prisons are part of a global network in which individuals face torture and are held indefinitely without charge. All of this is in direct contravention of the Geneva Conventions, International Law and the UN Convention Against Torture.”

Griffin detailed human rights abuses at Camp Nama at Baghdad International Airport in 2004, where individuals captured by the US/UK Task Force were detained and torture was carried out that was “systematic and sanctioned through the chain of command.” He also relates a story he was told by two soldiers that torture was carried out using partial asphyxiation and cattle prods.

Numerous human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, which has obtained damning firsthand evidence about abuses in secret detention facilities, have corroborated Griffin’s statements on abuse of detainees. Witnesses relate that the use of torture, including prolonged sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, beatings and humiliating treatment were widespread and sanctioned by commanding officers. Soldiers who objected to the treatment of prisoners were lectured on the exceptional circumstances of the “war on terror.”

The latest gagging order follows a series of similar cases where the government has forcibly silenced critics of its “war on terror” policy. Civil servant David Keogh and political researcher Leo O’Connor were jailed last year—for six months and three months, respectively—after being convicted of leaking a secret government memo from 2003, alleged to contain minutes of a meeting between then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush in which the latter reportedly advocated bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar.

The growing body of evidence exposing the crimes of detention without trial and a global network of prison camps has also implicated countries other than the UK and US. Statewatch obtained a document in 2005 that confirmed the European Union (EU) had agreed to rendition flights in CIA planes as part of a wider programme of joint security operations with the Bush administration in 2003.

In a recent report from the European Parliament on the alleged use of European countries for the illegal transport and detention of prisoners by the CIA, the EU Rapporteur Claudio Fava said, “Many governments co-operated passively or actively (with the CIA). They knew.”

According to the report, more than 1,000 CIA-operated flights used European airspace between 2001 and 2005. It also states that detention facilities may be located at US military bases in Europe and that some EU members turned a blind eye to flights operated by the CIA being used for extraordinary rendition or the illegal transportation of detainees.

The report mentions 21 well-documented cases of extraordinary rendition in which rendition victims were transferred through a European country or were residents in a European state at the time of their kidnapping. The national governments specifically criticised for their unwillingness to co-operate with investigations were those of Austria, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the UK.

Amnesty International has previously reported on more than 1,000 flights linked to the CIA, many of which used European airspace.

President George W. Bush stated in September 2006 that “alternative procedures” were necessary to deal with the new threat of global terrorism. Thanks to the courage and conviction of those like Ben Griffin, we now know more of the substance that lies behind those ominous words.

The global network of CIA “black sites” that have been established under the pretext of the “war on terror” are being used to suppress growing opposition to the imperialist aims of the United States to control the natural resources of the Middle East and Central Asia. According to the US Congress, up to 14,000 people may have been victims of rendition and secret detention since 2001.

Gagging Ben Griffin

Ellie Keen — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:34:24 +0000

"As of 1940hrs 29/02/08 I have been placed under an injunction preventing me from speaking publicly and publishing material gained as a result of my service in UKSF (SAS).

I will be continuing to collect evidence and opinion on British Involvement in extraordinary rendition, torture, secret detentions, extra judicial detention, use of evidence gained through torture, breaches of the Geneva Conventions, breaches of International Law and failure to abide by our obligations as per UN Convention Against Torture. I am carrying on regardless."

Ben Griffin, Former UK Special forces trooper

Ben Griffin, the ex-SAS trooper who this week revealed the extensive British collaboration with US rendition and torture, was served with an injunction immediately after speaking at the London World Against War rally last Monday. The government is trying to gag Ben to prevent any more revelations about British involvement in the US policy of kidnapping people and sending them to secret centres for interrogation and torture. (From Stop the War Coalition)

See him speaking below:

1,000 anti-fascists wreck Oxford’s sham debate

JamieSW — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:25:10 +0000

I was one of over a 1,000 protesters from all walks of life that gathered outside the Oxford Union debating club on Monday of this week to try and stop it from hosting a “forum” featuring two leading Nazis.

The decision to roll out the red carpet for Nick Griffin, leader of the fascist British National Party (BNP), and convicted Holocaust denier David Irving, had caused outrage among students, trade unionists and community groups.

The atmosphere at the protest was electric as people thronged around the Union building, arguing with those trying to attend the meeting.

The air was full of real political debate – in sharp contrast to the superficial rituals that the Union prides itself on.

Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, spoke to the protesters. “Granting Griffin and Irving a platform is a threat to all of us,” he said. “Wherever fascists are active, racist attacks and other hate crimes increase.”

People kept up a noisy presence by chanting and singing, when suddenly a gate swung open. Around 60 of us pushed our way into the Union compound past a pair of security guards that tried to rugby tackle us.

Eventually around 35 of us made it into the debating chamber – fending off attempts to physically block us by the Oxford Union’s champions of “free speech”.

We argued with the people inside, telling them that what went on in their chambers had real effects in the outside world.

By giving a platform to the BNP they were giving credibility to an organisation that actively promotes the worst kind of violence against black people, Asians, Jews and other minorities.

At this point they decided to walk out of the debating chamber and hold their meetings with Nazis in two separate rooms elsewhere.

Speaking tour

The atmosphere was getting ugly, so we negotiated to be let out. We marched out of the building, rejoining the protest outside to cheers.

This protest was vitally important in building the breadth and confidence of the anti-fascist movement.

We united a whole range of people and organisations – students’ unions, trade unions, the Jewish and Muslim societies to name but a few – in a show of strength against the BNP’s race hatred.

Griffin is desperate to overturn the no platform policies that have prevented fascist thugs from organising effectively among students for years.

He wants to go on a speaking tour of universities with Irving, using “free speech” as an excuse to spread his poison.

We need to build more mass protests like this to defend the no platform policy and to send a simple message to the Nazis – never again.

Intellectual Terrorism

Ellie Keen — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:49:25 +0000

The newest and least attractive import from America, following on behind Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Friends, is the pro-Israel lobby. The latest target of this US-style campaign is the august Oxford Union.

This week, two Israeli colleagues and I were due to appear at the union to participate in an important debate on the one-state solution in Israel-Palestine. Also invited was the American Jewish scholar and outspoken critic of Israel, Norman Finkelstein. At the last minute, however, the union withdrew its invitation to him, apparently intimidated by threats from various pro-Israel groups.

The Harvard Jewish lawyer and indefatigable defender of Israel, Alan Dershowitz, attacked the topic of the debate as well as the Oxford Union itself. In an article headlined “Oxford Union is dead”, he accused it of having become “a propaganda platform for extremist views”, and castigated its choice of what he termed anti-Israel and anti-semitic speakers.

Yet Dershowitz could have restored the balance as he saw it; he was the first person invited by the Oxford Union to oppose the motion but he declined due, as he put it, to “the terms of the debate and my proposed teammates”.

Dershowitz’s article attacking the Oxford Union appeared in the Jerusalem Post in Israel and Frontpage magazine in the US. [Because of British defamation laws Cif has been advised not to provide a link – Ed.]

Dershowitz and Finkelstein were protagonists in a much-publicised academic row in the US, though it is unclear whether this has any relevance to the Oxford Union spat.

In solidarity with Finkelstein and to oppose this gross interference in British democratic life, the three of us on the “one state” side – myself, Avi Shlaim, of St Anthony’s College, Oxford, and the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe – decided to withdraw from the debate. This was not an easy decision, since the topic was timely and necessary given the current impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, where innovative solutions are in short supply.

Dershowitz and the other pro-Israel activists may rejoice at their success in derailing an important discussion. But it is of little comfort to those of us who care about freedom of speech in this country. Last May, Dershowitz interfered in British academic life when the University and College Union voted overwhelmingly to debate the merits of boycotting Israeli institutions. He teamed up with a British Jewish lawyer, Anthony Julius, and others, threatening to “devastate and bankrupt” anyone acting against Israeli universities.

In another example of these bullying tactics, the Royal Society of Medicine, one of Britain’s most venerable medical institutions, came under an attack this month, unprecedented in its 200 year history. It had invited Dr Derek Summerfield, a psychiatrist (who has also documented Israelıs medical abuses against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories), to its conference on Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health. The RSM was immediately bombarded with threats from pro-Israel doctors demanding Dr Summerfield’s removal on the grounds that he was Èpoliticalı and biased, and that the RSM’s charitable status would be challenged if he remained. Intimidated, the RSM asked Dr Summerfield to withdraw, although they later reinstated him.

The power of the Israel lobby in America is legendary. It demonstrates its influence at many levels. Campus Watch is a network that monitors alleged anti-Israel activity in US academic institutions. The difficulties of promotion in the US for scholars deemed anti-Israeli are notorious. The notable Palestinian academic, Edward Said, was subjected to an unrelenting campaign by pro-Israel groups at Columbia University with threats on his life. His successor, Rashid Khalidi, is the current object of the same campaign of vilification and attack. Finkelstein himself has been denied tenure at his university and everywhere else. The authors of a recent study of the Israel lobby’s influence on US foreign policy have been called anti-semites and white supremacists. Former president Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: peace not apartheid, has earned him the label of “Jew-hater” and Nazi sympathiser. The British publisher, Pluto Press, is likely to be dropped by its American distributors, the University of Michigan Press, because pro-Israel groups accuse it of including “anti-Semitic” (ie pro-Palestinian/critical of Israel) books on its list.

Such activities are familiar in the US. People there are hardened or resigned to having their freedom of expression limited by the pro-Israel lobby, and the threats of Dershowitz would cause no surprise to anyone. But Britain is different, naively innocent in the face of US-style assaults on its scholars and institutions. No wonder that those who have been attacked give in so quickly, nervous of something they do not understand. The UCU leadership, shocked and intimidated by the ferocious reaction to the boycott motion from pro-Israel groups, resorted to legal advice to extricate itself and announced in September that a call to boycott Israeli institutions would be “unlawful”. The Oxford Union jettisoned one of its participants rather than stand up to the threats of its critics. The RSM tried to distance the offending speaker from its conference to protect itself from abuse.

All this is understandable, but it is exactly the wrong response. Appeasing bullies like Dershowitz will not stop them. It will rather encourage them to go further. The question is, do we in this country want a McCarthyite witch hunt? If not, then we must confront the bullies and expose them for the intellectual terrorists they are, bent on destroying the values of a free society. To do otherwise will invite the fate of all repressed people, cowed and intimidated, hating their tormentors, but too afraid to say so.

A shameful silence

JamieSW — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:57:45 +0000

We have become accustomed to theatrical displays of intolerance: death threats against writers, bonfires of novels, plays shut down, vandals defacing paintings. The danger, however, is that this obscures the more insidious forms that the suppression of dissent can take.

Announcing that the proposed boycott of links with Israeli universities would be illegal, the University and College Union asserted that debates related to the topic under its auspices would also be “unlawful”. On the basis of last week’s legal opinion (the details of which remain shrouded in mystery), the union’s leadership has summarily cancelled public debates to have been attended by “legitimate representatives of organisations from both Israel and Palestine”. Scheduled for a national tour this autumn, the carefully balanced debates had been described by the union leadership itself as a “sensible basis” on which to approach the divisive issue. As such, they were supported by many of us who, while condemning the abuse of Palestinian human rights by the Israeli state, questioned the ethical and strategic merits of a boycott. Now all engagement on the issue is off the table.

Some argue that this fractious union would do better to focus on domestic matters, after the ignominious end to last year’s action for better pay. Academics, however, can’t afford to ignore this appalling attempt to undermine that most fundamental intellectual value – free debate. How, in an apparently democratic context, can it be “unlawful” to discuss an issue or possible action? Are discussions of economic sanctions against, say, Burma illegal? What about sanctions against Hamas-led Palestine? It is a particular travesty when such a blatant attack on civil rights comes from the very organisation members expect would defend them were they to be harassed for their scholarly opinions.

The move comes at a time when academic freedom cannot be taken for granted. In the US, it is under increasing assault from within and outside academia. Even as freedom of speech is invoked as the great western value to be spread across the globe, by force if necessary, its limits are marked by two unbreachable taboos: anti-Americanism, and criticism of the Israeli state and its occupation of Palestine. Organisations such as Campus Watch monitor what academics write and teach, compile blacklists and attempt to shut down debate, despite their claim to support free speech. Respected scholars who have faced campaigns include Columbia University’s Middle East specialist Joseph Massad, who was accused and then cleared of anti-semitism; outspoken Michigan professor Juan Cole; and Norman Finkelstein, refused tenure and forced to resign after DePaul University came under external pressure. Most recently, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was banned by the University of St Thomas in Minnesota because of his stance on Israel/Palestine.

Dissenting Jewish academics are themselves the target of what Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer call “the Israel lobby”. These authors, by no means anti-American radicals, came under fire simply for attempting to open discussion on US-Israel relations.

Though encomiums to free speech underpin displays of civilisational superiority by America and other western polities, it is undermined in practice by flagrant breaches of academic integrity and protocol. It is impossible to imagine a white European or American head of state, even an authoritarian such as Putin, being described in the demeaning way that the Columbia University president Lee Bollinger introduced Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – as “a petty and cruel dictator”. The same Bollinger was president when the investigation of Massad and other scholars took place. There is no excuse for inviting an elected leader to talk at your university only to undermine him as lacking in “intellectual courage” before he has had a chance to speak. It’s called a set-up.

The UCU leadership’s call for constructive engagement over a divisive boycott is looking like a set-up, too. Sadly, the pressure exerted by people identified as part of the Israel lobby – including the Harvard lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who is quick to denounce criticism of Israeli policy as anti-semitic (never mind if it comes from Jewish intellectuals as well) – has succeeded in shutting down discussion, let alone criticism, of the Palestinians. Is silence the only constructive approach to the Palestinian question?

Writers and intellectuals have a moral obligation to criticise violations of human rights and freedom wherever they occur – Iran, Zimbabwe, Burma, Guantánamo or South Africa. The military occupation of Palestine should be no exception. Whatever their views on boycotts, academics must not allow such persistent exceptionalism to suppress debate in an organisation expected to defend, not undermine, their right to freedom of speech and engagement.

Parlia-ment-al

JamieSW — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:46:26 +0000

...A-TO-B PEACE MARCH BANNED AS UK JUNTA CRACKS DOWN IN SHOW OF SOLIDARITY WITH BURMESE GOVERNMENT

“This is rather a ham-fisted attempt to prevent us from demonstrating. What they (the government and police) do is up to them. We will just ignore them and we have the moral and logical high-ground. I will be marching on Monday 8 October.” – Mark Thomas

Police forbid a march on the centre of government – Rangoon? Nope, London. While Gordon Brown reminds the world of our commitment to human rights and expresses his disgust at the treatment meted out to Burmese protestors, its a different story when it come to the overwrought mother of parliaments.

The previously studiously uncontroversial Stop the War Coalition has run up against the big protest clampdown. Their planned “Troops Out” march on October 8th from Trafalgar square to Parliament has been banned by the Met police. But they’re planning to march anyway.

Usually STWC conducts totally legal demonstrations and has not previously lent its support to illegal direct action. On this occasion they were in negotiation with the police for some weeks beforehand and by cunningly apparently getting round the Public Order and SOCPA legislation by fully complying with it, the march appeared to have the police go ahead. Their marches, which tend to be of the ‘go from a set A to B, hear Tony Benn’ affairs, have been sanctioned and facilitated before by the police – in a marked contrast to heavy handed treatment of unauthorised events such as Sack Parliament (see SchNEWS 564). Pundits used to the Met’s usual attitude to protests were left slack-jawed at the minimal policing in evidence on the massive march in Feb 2003. In fact discussions between the organisers and the police included plans to neutralise anarchist elements, such as samba group Rhythms of Resistance.

However, last Friday in a room at New Scotland Yard, in a meeting with events co-ordinator Inspector Stuart Cornish – claiming to be acting on a “steer from upstairs”, he informed them that the march would not be allowed within one mile of parliament. In return the organisers were offered a static demo – and to their credit they walked out of the meeting.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

To achieve this the cops dusted off the the 1839 Sessional Orders legislation, which allows the granting of orders to allow the free passage of MPs and peers into Parliament. The Act “ORDERED, That the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis do take care that the passages through the streets leading to this House be kept free and open and that no obstruction be permitted to hinder the passage of Members to and from this House”. When this act was passed the greatest threat to the state was Chartism, a riotous movement demanding democratic freedom. What next? Public gatherings broken up under the ‘Corn Laws‘? The return of the ducking stool?

The Sessional orders do not actually confer any extra powers on the police, being merely a formal expression of parliament’s wishes. Those wishes being of course being that the people should in no way attempt to interfere with the business of their masters. But it is anticipated that police will make arrests under the usual Do What You’re Told Act if any attempt is made to breach the cordon around parliament.