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The Libel Reform Campaign is calling for the government to honour manifesto promises for a defamation bill with a strong public interest defence to protect authors, bloggers, scientists, academics and NGOs
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After a performance in the House of Commons in support of Belarus’s imprisoned opposition activists and journalists, Denis MacShane warns the leaders of Europe’s last dictatorship that justice plays a long game
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2 Jul 2010 | Uncategorized
PRESS RELEASE
Index on Censorship is calling upon the new government and mayor of London to re-affirm the right to protest in Parliament Square. With police planning to remove the “Democracy Village” protests in Parliament Square tomorrow after campaigners lost a legal battle with the mayor of London, Index is concerned that a precedent will be maintained that prohibits any form of overnight protest.
Index is also concerned that the police will remove long-term protester Brian Haw, who has maintained his vigil for 3,294 days since June 2001. At the state opening of Parliament on 25 May, Brian Haw was arrested, hardly an auspicious start for a new government that has committed to a “Great Repeal Bill” of illiberal legislation.
Index on Censorship is calling upon politicians to make it clear that the right to protest in Parliament Square is a “non-negotiable” right for the British people and that the legislation that restricts protest there is repealed.
The mayor of London also has an important role in protecting protest in Parliament Square. In 1999, under the Greater London Authority Act, the square was transferred from the Parliamentary estate to the Greater London Authority. As such, the mayor of London has responsibility for the use of Parliament Square and so could enshrine the space as a designated space for protest.
John Kampfner, chief executive of Index on Censorship said:
“The right to protest in Parliament Square is non-negotiable. Whilst there may be long-term consequences in letting the ‘Democracy Village’ stay, it is the duty of politicians to maintain the right to free expression and assembly, and then deal with associated public order issues. The new government has an opportunity to repeal the previous administration’s authoritarian legislation prohibiting protest around Westminster.”
Jo Glanville, editor of Index on Censorship, said:
“Brian Haw’s dogged campaign became one of the most enduring symbols of opposition under the last government. Labour actually changed the law to try and remove him — and undermined the right to protest of the entire nation in the process. The treatment of protesters — and the use of legislation, including counter-terrorism to control them — was one of the most significant blots on the copybook of the previous government, but now it seems the new government wishes to follow suit.”
2 Jul 2010 | News and features
The right to freedom of expression does not entitle indefinite occupation of public land. Brett Lock of Harry’s Place responds to Index’s support for Parliament Square protesters
The right to freedom of expression is precisely that: a right to receive and impart ideas. It does not enable a man to live in a tent on public land for nearly a decade, if he has no independent right to do so.
It is legal to advertise goods and services but illegal to fly-poster the side of a public building with advertising material. There is no law against singing sea shanties, but you may be ejected from a cinema if you decide to do so in the middle of a film. You cannot play a country and western record at top volume at 2am. All these examples restrict what can be said, expressed or broadcast, but none are forms of censorship. They are merely controls on the time and place of expression.
This is a crucial distinction. Censorship seeks to silence and suppress ideas. Telling a person to shut up at this particular moment, in this particular place, is not censorship. Doing so does not seek to suppress their ideas. It protects the rights of others to peace and quiet. All reasonable people understand this.
So, what of Brian Haw, the “protester” who has lived in a tent on Parliament Square for almost a decade, wafting from one issue to another and drawing all manner of fringe causes to his orbit? Recently I walked past and there was a wall of placards claiming the Freemasons had murdered a range of people, including the late wife of Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who died in a car accident. Haw also believes that 9/11 was an “inside job”.
That said, we should not be distracted by the fact that many of the views presented for our consumption by the Haw camp are quite mad. They are ideas and they are being expressed. That is sufficient for their protection. That is why temporary and short-lived demonstrations, in the symbolically important environment of Parliament Square, should most certainly be permitted.
However, I would not be allowed to install a booth providing information about the products and services of my business in Parliament Square or on any other public land. I would not be allowed to set up a small stage and host an alternative Glastonbury. So why should Haw and his colourful troupe be any different? Disseminating his ideas he is free to do. He may push leaflets through our doors. He may participate in radio phone-ins. He can set up a website. He can even hold a daily protest. But what he can’t do is live in a tent on public ground indefinitely merely because he’s scrawled a political slogan on a bit of old cardboard.
Haw’s protest is repetitive to the point where it is just white noise. He can’t shut up because he’s afraid not for his ideas (which are expressed daily by millions) but for himself: that he might be an irrelevance without his tent and his bit of cardboard.
Quite frankly, I am alarmed that Index on Censorship has taken such an
unsophisticated view of this case, and indeed, is enabling the self-destructive behaviour of a man who strikes me as quite possibly mentally ill. I feel so strongly about it, that I’ve written an article on the subject. But I most emphatically do not have the right to express my opposition by setting up a permanent camp outside Index on Censorship Chair Jonathan Dimbleby’s house.
Or do I?
Brett Lock was the editor of Gay Humanist Quarterly. He is also a regular contributor to the political blog Harry’s Place and a campaigner with the gay human rights group, OutRage!.
As Boris Johnson wins his fight to “democracy village”, Bibi van der Zee asks if the courts intend to end the great British tradition of camping in protest
