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Campaign for Free Assembly 1. House of Lords Question on Parly Square Restrictions 2. Campaign for Free Assembly Meeting 16th February / Action March 1st House of Lords Question on Parly Square Restrictions Hi everyone, I thought you might like to know that on Tuesday 5th February Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer has tabled a question in the House of Lords to ask the Government "what changes they are proposing to the law governing the holding of peaceful demonstrations in Parliament Square." It might be good if people contacted her to thank her for raising the issue in parliament and just send on any reponses to the consultation to help her in the debate and send on to her colleagues. She is the Lib Dem spokesperson on Home Affairs - her email address is millers@parliament.uk (tel: 020 7219 6042). You could also write to Lord West of Spithead (who is Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home office) and the Conservative Spokespeople Baroness Hanham and Baroness Neville-Jones at: House of Lords, London, SW1A 0PW to show the level of interest in this issue. Hope this helps! CFA Meeting 16th February / Action March 1st Campaign for Free Assembly public meeting Saturday 16th February 2pm-4pm London School of Economics room H103, Connaught House Map: http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/mapsAndDirections/Default.htm We Own The Streets - Campaign for Free Assembly It's time we had freedom to publicly assemble in the UK. We need this in response to continued police repression and the Government's consultation 'Managing Protest around Parliament', which proposes giving the police powers to censor the content of banners and placards, and that the laws about restrictions and notifications which currently apply to marches should be extended to all demonstrations. This is what has already happened in the 'SOCPA zone' around Parliament. The proposed powers and those already given to the police create a climate of criminalisation, a vast confusion of laws are applied arbitrarily, so people are arrested simply for standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, for having the wrong face, and combined with a police culture that evades accountability even when people are killed, as shown by the Menezes case and others, there should be no complacency that the court system can be relied on to prevent abuse and injustice. Whatever the issues that matter most to you, whether you are concerned about a safer school crossing, a new runway or ending a war, this proposal will affect you. The government consultation, which ended on 17th January, needs a response not on paper but on our streets, the message is simple - we claim the freedom to assemble without prior notification or permission - and this is not open to negotiation. We plan to hold a second day of action on Saturday 1st March proclaiming this freedom, as the next step in establishing a new era where it is unquestionable that our liberties cannot be consulted away. The next meeting of the campaign
will be on 16th
February.
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