Sun, 22 Apr 2007
As mentioned
previously,
following the initiative of comedian Mark Thomas to demonstrate the
dangerous absurdity of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
(SOCPA), in particular of its
Section
132, many had requested prior authorisation from the Police
to hold lone demonstrations this past Saturday. Section 132 outlaws
protests without police permission in a designated area within a 1 km
straight line from the central part of Parliament Square.
According to the Home Office, ‘during the period 1 August 2005
to December 2006 1,379 demonstrations have taken place [in the SOCPA
zone] with an authorisation’. The aim was to have 2,000 mass lone
demonstrations. The demo-ometer on Mark Thomas'
website
shows that
2,294 applications to demonstrate on Saturday 2007-04-21 were handed in.
My own demonstrations was to ‘call for the police to consider other
options than to arrest innocents (and keep their DNA) or to shoot
them’. This is one of the issues I raised in my
appeal
to the outcome of the IPCC-supervised enquiry (I called the IPCC
earlier in the week and apparently my appeal was to be reviewed the the
IPCC legal team during the week). I demonstrated on the very same
issue, a
month
ago.
As mentioned previously,
following the initiative of comedian Mark Thomas to demonstrate the
dangerous absurdity of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
(SOCPA), in particular of its Section
132, many had requested prior authorisation from the Police
to hold lone demonstrations this past Saturday. Section 132 outlaws
protests without police permission in a designated area within a 1 km
straight line from the central part of Parliament Square.