Categories: uncategorized
Date: 07 October 2005 08:13:21
I've just read this weeks Schnews and I'm worried, v.worried. It says 600 people were stopped under the Stop and Search Laws in Brighton last week, during the Labour Party conference, but then goes on to explain some of the laws that have gotten on to the statute books over the last few years in terms of restricting the right to assemble / protest.
The same issue also explains that Critical Mass are now getting major hassell from the police after 11 years of their monthly gathering / action.
On one level this worries me because it appears that legitimate public protest is now becoming almost impossible - if the authorities choose to implement certain parts of the law - and we are moving to a situation where only "officially approved" groups will be able to excercise their democratic right of protest. This is again adding to the culture of fear and state control, being generated in response(?) to the terrorist attacks (& so I would argue leading to the terrorists succeeding in destroying our way of life).
However, what really, really worries me is what would happen if there were, as is possible if we look at history, a real lurch to the right and, through fear of the other and a sense of hopelessness with their own situation, people elected a government, with a clear working majority, who were intent on "cleansing" society of certain opinions? They would be able to use existing laws, which our government has put on the statute book, to legally do this - if they chose to order the police to implement the law in a certain way.
I really think that we need to think about how laws being formulated now, by democratic governments (and despite how it looks they are), could be used in the future.
However on the side of good news, I read yesterday, (but can't find the article today) one of the US houses has voted to put an amendment into some, basically non-related, bill outlawing the human rights abuses of prisoners being held by the US outside of the USA; (I take it that this would bring them in line with what happens inside the US). So it has restored my belief in the way that our politicians, from all sides (and the guy who tabled the amendment was a Rupublican), can make decisions which will make it harder for people now and in the future to destroy humanity, (either on an individual or corporate level).