Even more SchNews

[Guest guest]

Through a politics of fear, we are being frightened into abandoning our

liberties in the name of protection from terrorist attack. In reality

these

anti-terror measures make us less secure, bringing us closer to a police

state. Now more than ever, everyone is needed to demonstrate their

opposition. " - Campaign Against Criminalising Communities

 

 

" It's time to stand up for everyone's freedom to leaflet, picket, assemble

and march against injustice and oppression. Such rights and freedoms have

not been handed down by the powers-that-be, but won through struggles over

the last 100 years or more. " - Freedom To Protest Conference (see below).

 

 

Last week 600 people were stopped and searched in Brighton under

Section 44

of the Terrorism Act 2000, during the Labour Party Conference in Brighton.

According to the Home Office, " Stop and search under Section 44 is an

important tool in the on-going fight against terrorism " and that the

use of

the powers was " intelligence-led and based on an assessment of the threat

against the UK. " But with 600 searches and no terrorists arrested, SchNEWS

reckon that's a pretty poor level of intelligence. So for four days we

got a

taste of what black and Muslim communities have been experiencing for

years.

 

 

The widespread use of the Terrorism Act to stifle dissent has only come to

media attention thanks to the silencing of 82 year old Walter Wolfgang

during Jack Straw's speech at the party conference. Wolfgang's unprompted

ad-lib ruined the Neo-Labour choreographed political theatre

production. So

he was thrown out and then detained for a search under Section 44 to stop

him getting back in. Sussex Police apologised to him of course - but only

because they were getting grief for it in the Daily Mail. The other 599

searched can get stuffed. What the public got was a glimpse of something

that SchNEWS has been banging on about for years.

 

 

Without hammering home the obvious, Section 44 has nothing to do with

stopping terrorism, it's just another tool the cops can use to push people

back into line - people who have the wrong ideas about democracy or

who live

in a community under suspicion. But it's not like the Terrorism Act is the

only thing that police have been using to batter anyone who protests over

the past few years. From Anti-Social Behaviour Orders to the Serious

Organised Crime and Police Act, the Protection from Harassment Act

1997 etc

etc. New laws have been enacted and old laws dusted off and reviewed to

snuff out dissent. Any gathering of two or more people can be made subject

to police control under a recent (2003) modification of the 1981 Public

Order Act - and still they want more.

 

 

Laws are coming in that will not just hinder free movement and

assembly but

will firmly infringe on freedom of speech. The government proposes to make

the 'glorification of terrorism' - (whatever that means) a criminal

offence.

That has serious implications for anyone writing about why our society

finds

itself at war.