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Stop the government criminalising protest

Tony L said:
Richard Murphy arguing the UK is now a fascist state after a protestor is jailed just for mentioning climate change in their defence (TaxResearch Blog).
Click to expand...
You are allowed to protest, provided that no one notices. Like you’re allowed to go on strike, provided that no one is inconvenienced.

Quite right too, we can’t have people challenging our glorious government, regardless of how much it inconveniences people by making them hungry, impoverishing them, and inconveniencing thousands of them by making them die waiting for NHS treatment.
 
Great blog post on Iraq War protests in SE London twenty years ago.

The next day when the war started school students were again in the front line of the protests. But some didn't make it as far as central London as they were stopped by police in Catford. The South London Press (21/3/2003) reported:

'Just hours after the first bombs landed on Baghdad, there was chaos across south London as protesters took to the streets. Thousands of young people walked out from schools and protesters gathered across the area to send an anti-war message to the government.

Yesterday morning Lewisham police stopped a bus in Catford and arrested and handcuffed six kids who had walked out of school to protest outside Parliament. One 14-year-old girl from Sydenham Girls School spoke to the South London Press from the bus which reportedly had 50 kids on it. She said 'the police took all our names and will not let us off. People are getting claustrophobic'. A police spokeswoman said 'police attended a demo outside Catford Town Hall where about one hundred people, mainly children aged 15 to 16 were demonstrating. After the demonstration many of them attempted to join a bus headed for central London. As they did so they caused a disturbance. Six children were arrested for public order offences and taken into custody"

One of those arrested was charged with assaulting a police officer, though he was acquitted at trial eight months later. He recalled: 'We boarded the 185 bus but before the driver could set off the police had ordered him to wait. They proceeded to take the names and telephone numbers of all school students present. When I questioned them about it they insisted on taking my name and asked me how they where supposed to know if I wasn’t a convicted criminal or paedophile... All around students were arguing the case against the war, while the police kept accusing them of skiving off school and being truants... the order came to physically remove them. In the course of this the police used force against myself and others and arrested us... The Magistrate dismissed the case because he was not satisfied with the police evidence. The prosecution had failed to produce any proof, apart from the statements of the police themselves, that I had kicked PC Ashdown in the "groin area". No independent witnesses, no statement from the bus drivers, no records from the hospital. The police testimony was grossly overstated and in some cases entirely made up'.

https://transpont.blogspot.com/2023/03/opposing-iraq-war-in-south-london.html
 
It wasn't only the West Midlands Serious Crime squad involved in fabricating evidence, it was routine business, especially around public order or picket lines, the Left generally, gay and black people were all fair game. Remember the Manchester Police attack on the 'Leon Brittan demo' in Manchester. Some students took photos through the window of the police station proving that the whole thing had been premeditated. There was even a Panorama programme at the time. Stephen Shaw had to flee to Canada. It wouldn't get a slot on the news today the way things have gone.

https://manchester1984.uk/chapters/section-2/chapter-7/
 
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