The right to assemble.

[Gh0st Face Killah]

Do you want to lose it?

Copied from a mate's blog cos i think its important but can't be arsed writing it again in my own words:
 
One issue that I've become aware of because of a post on Bristol Indymedia a couple of weeks back is the proposed amendments to the laws governing freedom of assembly in the UK.
 
Basically the government agreed to look into the changes in the law they introduced in 2005 Serious Organised Crime and Police Act which meant that any demonstration in the mile around parliament required prior police permission in order to proceed due to the sustained campaigns organised by NGO's and ordinary people complaining that their freedoms had been limited by this government.
 
In their recently produced consultation paper, they begin this review of the changes to the law around parliament by deciding to revisit the 1986 Public Order Act which covers marches and assemblies in the entire country. Currently these different kinds of demonstration are managed by different laws â€" if a march is organised in advance then its organisers are required to notify the police who can impose conditions on the march and apply to the council to have the march banned, whereas with assemblies there is currently no legal prerogative for organisers to notify the police.
 
The paper â€" designed to revisit the changes to unpopular changes to the laws regarding protesting around parliament â€" suggests that the laws nationwide for marches and assemblies are made the same. This would mean that for any small assembly or political event on public property - such as running a stall in broadmead, or flyering on college green â€" would require police permission, and could have conditions imposed on it (or even be banned).
 
We are currently in a period of public consultation which ends on January 17th, during which we, the public are allowed to respond to this suggestion. Now I haven't heard anything about this proposed change to the law and the consultation period from the mainstream media networks, so I had a look on Google â€" and found… nothing from the major news sites. Apparently freedom to political assembly isn't newsworthy according to the BBC, Sky, Channel 4 et al...
 
This is the kind of story which emphasises to me why it's so important that we build an independent media â€" one which allows people to communicate that these kinds of changes are happening around them while the commercial media say nothing.
 
Download a copy of the Governments consultation paper at
 
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2007-managing-protest
 
And email the government saying that you don't want this proposed change to the law at
 
ProtestaroundParliament@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk
 
Please pass these links on - its really important that people know about this and have the chance to respond before the government claims that during a period of public consultation it became apparent that no one was bothered by the spectre of this infringement of freedom.