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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
I don't know how I came to miss it, but I've only just read of the woman who was convicted on December 7th, under the provisions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 for peacefully reading out the names of British servicemen killed in the latest Iraq conflict. In that act, section 132 makes it an arrestable offence to stage a public demonstration within half a mile of the palace of Westminster without first seeking police permission. It just so happens that the Cenotaph, where this "demonstration" was held, is within half a mile of Westminster.
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?
