Article: 20051220
This is last article remaining to be recovered after
the great "Oops" 3 months ago. It covered
the topics of Freedom of Expression, the Serious Organised Crime and
Police Act 2005, protesting outside parliament, the police as arbiters of legitimate
protest, political squirming and government egg on face.
Unfortunately, of all the articles lost, this is - quite ironically, given the
subject - the only one I could not find any significant cache to reconstruct it
all from. This, so far, is what has painstakingly been reconstructed (and
is probably as complete as it ever will be):
Freedom of Expression - except where it counts
There are just so many things wrong with this whole idea that I'm flabbergasted
that that the thing ever got into law.
The Lords can happily spend years umming and ahhing over the topic of fox hunting,
but when it comes to encroachment on the popular right to democratic expression of
their views, where are the checks and balances then?
Where in the country is our right to demonstration most sacred if not in the faces
of the politicians who make decisions in our name, supposedly for the benefit of
all?
We don't live in a police state, although with the measures that they have been
seeking of late, and David Blunkett was championing blindly (pun intended) the
journey down that road may not be far off.
In the meantime, why on earth does the constabulary get to have a say in whose
views may be expressed and whose not?
The whole absurdity of the situation is highlighted by the fact that section 132
was enacted to remove from sight a demonstrator camped on Parliament Square green
since the Iraq war, providing severe embarrassment to the government.
As such it singularly failed, since the courts ruled (in simple terms) that as the
demonstration pre-dated the Act its provisions do not apply, and the camp
remains.
The government recoils with egg on their collective faces, and instead the Act is
used to prosecute two individuals performing a performing a simple peaceful ceremony
a short distance away.
And the daftest thing of all - this all came to light for me because organisers
of a simple carol service, who intend to sing outside parliament as a demonstration
of communal support and tolerance are warning those who choose to attend that they
may risk arrest and prosecution.
What price democracy and freedom, now, when a public demonstration of one's
principles is now defined in law as a Serious Crime?
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