Friday, July 27, 2007

 

Anti-war tea parties as terrorist activities? Coming soon to a nation near us....

If you make a list of the countries, U.S. allies, where repressive techniques were first tried out, and then later used in our country, it would be a long one. South Africa in the old days, Chile, Nicaragua, Salvador, Israel, Viet Nam, and now the country we consider the cradle of our civil liberties, Great Britain. Imagine, being hassled because of your t-shirt, and because of an utterly vague defiinition of “terrorism.”

Are we the greatest country in the world or what?

The answer is “What.”

Anti-war tea parties?

Another draconian attempt to curb Britain's civil liberties
By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent
Published: 27 July 2007

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2809172.ece

The attempt to prevent demonstrators from reaching Heathrow airport is the latest in a long line of erosion of civil liberties which started during Tony Blair's reign. ***

Section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act, which gives police the power to stop and search anyone in an area considered a likely terrorist target. It was used most notoriously to hold Walter Wolfgang, the veteran peace activist who heckled Jack Straw, when he was Foreign Secretary, at the 2005 Labour conference.

In the same year, John Catt, 81, was detained as he walked towards the seafront for an anti war demonstration near the conference hall in Brighton.

He fell foul of the police after he was spotted wearing a T-shirt accusing Tony Blair and George Bush of war crimes. The police record said the "purpose" of the stop and search was "terrorism".

***

It has also been used against Maya Evans, a chef who stood on the Cenotaph in Whitehall and read out a list of soldiers killed in Iraq and against Mark Barrett, a tour guide who staged an anti-war tea party opposite the House of Commons.

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