Watch these two videos of campaigner Charlie Veitch being stopped by the Metropolitan Police under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, despite having demonstrably not broken a single law. A comedian speaking loudly through a megaphone is now longer a lawful reason under the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling to stop and search people on anti-terrorism grounds, but watch the exchange. It’s quite revealing:
Charlie Veitch of The Love Police shows up a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) for trying to illegally detain him merely for speaking loudly on a megaphone. The irony couldn’t have been lost on many on Camden High Street that they should have decided to exercise their power (of which arrest isn’t strictly one, and certainly not in this instance) on Veitch, when drugs pushers are walking past them and actively doing business by the dozen. Welcome to Britain 2010.
Henry Porter makes an excellent point – neither of the Big Two major political parties in Britain is talking at all about civil liberties or human rights in the run-up to the general election the month after next. Remember this is the election where we can thoroughly repudiate this authoritarian government’s surveillance agenda, and refuse to vote for anyone who doesn’t guarantee to repeal it:
It is [also] a very dangerous government – it has attacked liberty and rights like no other administration in the past hundred years, and it will continue to do so unless stopped by the electorate in 70 days’ time, for the one area which requires absolutely no skill at all is the creation of new offences, the erosion of ancient liberties and filling our lives with endless checking, vetting and surveillance.
Cameron has spoken about these things in the past but this great issue is not apparently big enough to be one of the main themes of an election campaign in which so much is obviously at stake. The only conclusion to draw is that the Tories believe either this is not important, or that the public don’t think it is important. I am not sure which puts them in a worse light because the first displays shallowness, while the second a lack of leadership.
The Tories have rejected changing the voting system and they’re uninterested in talking seriously about civil liberties – this mustn’t be an election about personalities, nor must it be reduced to who can cut public services and how fast. It must be about repairing the social damage caused by New Labour, and proving to all the major parties that the trade-off between security and liberty is a false one.
I shall be voting Green, because they have a strong chance of removing the government minister who doesn’t represent me in any way, shape or form. You should be voting for parties which are against ID cards, think vetting the population for paedophilia before being allowed to work is unthinkably wrong, which don’t demonise asylum seekers (or lock up their children), and which couldn’t condone throwing people off the internet without a trial, or secretly banning websites they don’t like. If the Tories don’t start talking all of these abuses down (and more), you can’t vote for them merely to get Brown, Straw, Johnson, Balls et al out, because they clearly won’t have any intention to do any better. The database state and state surveillance culture must be stopped – this is your best chance to take a stand and make it happen.
The use of Stop & Search without grounds for suspicion has been ruled illegal by European Court of Human Rights. This ruling from Strasbourg comes as thousands of photographers are set to gather in London on Saturday 23rd January to take mass action to defend their right to photograph after a series of high profile detentions under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act.
Our society’s visual history is under threat of extinction by anti-terrorism legislation. Section 44 of the Terrorism Act has in effect ended the confidence of the citizen to engage in the act of photography in a public place as photographers, artists and illustrators, amateur and professional are harassed by police invoking terrorism legislation to stop and search them. The act of documenting our street scenes and public life, our built environment, whether iconic or not, is now considered to be an act of hostile reconnaissance and could result in the detention of the image-maker.
The Mass Photo Gathering has been called by the campaign group I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! which has over 9000 followers on Facebook.
The German Pirate Party has held a flashmob at Berlin’s Tegel airport, in response to its unquestioning adoption of new, intrusive body scanners after the abortive attempt to blow up the flight in Detroit at Christmas. And they’ve kindly shared their ‘fleshmob’ with the world:
They suggest it’s about giving the impression of improved security – I would tend to agree but it’s not just a sop to public opinion. It’s a further, needless intrusion into the private realm of the individual for no need. If the intelligence agencies had done their job properly – Abdulmutallab’s father had alerted the American security services to his son’s behaviour for goodness’ sake – he would never have ended up on that plane. Why should the rest of us suffer yet further attacks on our privacy because ‘intelligence’ officials can’t do their jobs properly? Well done, Piratenpartei!
The British Humanist Association (BHA) has today supported calls from British Muslims for Secular Democracy to counter a demonstration planned by Islam 4 UK in Wootton Bassett. Islam 4 UK, a group who have held demonstrations in the past calling for Shariah law in the UK, plan to hold the march in the town which has become a symbol of mourning for British service men and women who have died in conflicts abroad.
If the march goes ahead, British Muslims for Secular Democracy are planning to organise a counter demonstration bringing together a number of religious and non-religious groups.
Pepper Harow, Campaigns Officer, stated, ‘The BHA supports free speech, democracy and freedom of belief and expression. By organising this march against such values, Islam 4 UK seek to offend and to divide. The BHA will support any counter demonstration that brings together people from diverse backgrounds and celebrates the values that we share as a free and open society.’
On public order grounds it’s pretty obvious the Islamist march will never take place. I just hope that those so easily drawn into Islamophobia appreciate that Islam 4 UK really doesn’t represent British Muslims.
As Climate Camp set up on Blackheath in south London yesterday I got hold of a copy of the code of conduct that journalists will be asked to sign if they want to stay on the camp outside of media hours (10am-6pm) and it makes for fascinating reading.
Most of it reinforces the camp’s existing media policy such as asking for everyone’s permission when taking a photograph. The code says ‘When you want to take a picture or a video and it includes people, always, always ask first. If you can’t ask don’t take the picture.’
The camp’s organisers claim that all decisions are made with consensus from everyone. But reading through the minutes of the national meetings before the camp, the code of conduct is only ever mentioned in passing. There is never a discussion about what it should be and what it should contain.
So what has resulted is the media team’s moral view on what the press should be allowed to do being imposed on everyone at the camp and on journalists. We do not allow the police to impose their moral view of what should be photographed on us, so why should journalists subscribe to the media team’s views?
Warren makes the salient point about this year’s camp being on public land, making it even more remarkable that the Climate Camp organisers should feel able to impose rules on anyone. I was up there last night and when on ‘their’ space always asked for permission to take people’s photograph – it’s a common courtesy after all. But ‘informing on camp activities’ – would the brief audioboo I submitted count? – is that as much a sign of paranoia as the highly unusual fencing they’ve encased themselves in?
He’s my local mayor, but I won’t be voting for Sir Steve Bullock again. Staggeringly he compares the Climate Camp protesters occupying Blackheath for a week with football hooligans, before saying:
The problem with the Campers is that no matter how well intentioned and nice they are what they are doing is counterproductive. It will be seen as self indulgent by lots of people who are struggling through the recession and could even make it harder to win support for some of the difficult measures that will have to be taken in the future. And who do you think is going to have to pay to take the rubbish away, provide water and repair the Heath when they’ve gone? That’s right you and me – the taxpayers of Lewisham who were never asked and never agreed to the camp being here.
Being angry with the Climate Change Campers doesn’t mean you don’t care about the issue – for me they are a distraction from the real task of changing how we behave and persuading ever more of our fellow citizens to change the way they behave too.
I’d say Bullock is part of the problem. Speaking as a resident of Lewisham their ‘measures to reduce the impact of climate change’ are undetectable. It’s the same mentality which permeates the top level of the entire Labour Party – protest and you’re a hooligan – it’s only those in authority who can (read: ’should’) make change, except they never seem to. It’s a cheap political shot, which I suspect most of his constituents won’t agree with. Is he really claiming Lewisham’s council tax will go up as a result of climate protesters occupying common land for one week? Speaking as someone entirely happy with my new, temporary neighbours, I know who’s really coming across as patronising and selfish!
Police officers’ notebooks lodged at the high court tell how they punched people in the face and beat others with riot shields during the G20 demonstrations in April.
The notebooks, which have been lodged as evidence in an action brought by three protesters, also disclose how Metropolitan police were given no restrictions on the use of force when they were ordered to move protesters attending the Climate Change camp in the City of London on 1 April. The accounts were written up the day after the demonstrations.
In one notebook, a police constable recounts how when he saw a protester pushing against officers’ shields: “I punched him in the jaw and he moved backwards.”
Another officer describes how he hit people with “shield strikes both flat and angled. I also delivered open palm strikes to a number of individuals and fist strikes as well.”
A third constable logged: “To get the protesters who would not move, I needed to hit the flat part of my shield to get them to move back. I also used open-handed palm strikes. Once the protesters were moved back to the required distance, we remained in a closed cordon until relieved.”
The Met insists that this time they’ll engage in ‘community policing’, but what evidence is there that they’ll keep their word? Their operation last time in Bishopsgate promised (and for a time delivered) ‘community policing’, but entirely peaceful protesters still faced the brutality mentioned above. After all Chief Superintendant Helen Ball, in command of policing Climate Camp’s swoop and camp (beginning as I write) has said:
“At the moment we will be photographing people on arrival at the camp because it is important for us to know if there are people coming who want to cause violence and disorder.
“We will not be routinely stopping and searching everybody going into the camp and we have briefed officers carefully on searching people and what the spirit of the operation is.”
In other words the first tactic will be to use Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) from the outset. Given that FIT teams used for protest are never used to track people who might cause violence and disorder, how can we possibly believe that the stop and search tactics used at Kingsnorth won’t be reappearing, not to mention the suppression and attacks on the media? The jury’s out and the country is watching…
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