The Guardian: Court says Iraq protest is a crime

[sabra]

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1661946,00.html

Special report: politics and Iraq



Court says Iraq protest is a crime

The Guardian


A peace campaigner who stood outside Downing Street reading a list of the British soldiers killed in Iraq was convicted yesterday under a controversial new law which bans unauthorised demonstrations within one kilometre of Westminster.

Maya Anne Evans, 25, was found guilty of breaching section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, following a three-hour trial at Bow Street magistrates' court in London. She was given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £100 towards costs.

Evans, a vegan cook from Hastings, Sussex, was arrested on October 25 as she stood next to the Cenotaph in Whitehall and read out the names. A fellow campaigner, who was reading out the names of dead Iraqi civilians, was also arrested. The court heard that the two conducted a peaceful "remembrance ceremony" and had intended to ring a bell for each of the names read out.

Evans spent five hours in Charing Cross police station before being charged. She said yesterday that she wanted to appeal against her conviction but was willing to venture back into the exclusion zone even if it meant going to prison.

[Jacobin]

1. Good Grief!!! What has happened to Britain?

Its getting as bad as the U.S.?

WTF is in the drinking water?

[IndianaGreen]

2. Two words: Tony Blair

Blair has been accused of trying to turn the Premiership into an American-style presidency. Blair has introduced legislation that is more draconian than our PATRIOT Act. Back in 2002, Blair also cleaned house in the BBC because its reporting was too critical. The BBC hasn't been the same since.

I fear that the US and the UK are on a path to tyranny and that nothing can stop it!

[Inland]

3. Should be the "Not serious, Disorganized Crimes Act".

I'm not even sure how reading names is a "demonstration".

[Miss Chybil]

4. Freedom's on the March all over the world. THIS is the noble cause! nt

[UpInArms]

13. Yes, dying so that even your name being read can become a crime.

The dead of this illegal war can only be remembered in silence and darkness - no light must shine on their coffins and their names must be stricken from speech near any governmental offices.

Now that is a "noble cause". :sarcasm:

[LongTomH]

5. British subjects become criminals for opposing war!

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article331782.ece">From the Independent Online:

In three different British courtrooms yesterday, three ordinary people stood accused of three very different crimes, but all based simply on their opposition to the war in Iraq.

n the first case of its kind, a woman received a criminal conviction for standing outside Downing Street and reading aloud the names of the 97 British soldiers who have died in the Iraq conflict. At the same time as Maya Evans, 25, appeared in court yesterday to become the first person to be found guilty under the legislation designed to create an exclusion zone around Parliament Square, Douglas Barker, 72, a retired businessman from Wiltshire, was told by a magistrate that he faces jail for withholding part of his income tax on his investments, also in protest over Iraq.

In a third courtroom in Aldershot, a military judge heard that Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, an RAF medical officer based in Scotland, faced a court martial for refusing to serve in Iraq on the basis that the war was illegal.

After her hearing, Ms Evans, a part-time vegan chef from Hastings, described her conviction as an assault on her right to freedom of expression. She said: " I just think it's a shame you can't voice your freedom of speech in this country any more and it is illegal to hold a remembrance ceremony for the dead."

There's another word for people like this: Heroes!

[Sapphocrat]

6. I never thought I'd see the day...

...when the U.K. started taking lessons from Australia.

Disgusting.

[MisterP]

7. Blair is amazing: he's managed to unite the personalities of

Cromwell and Charles I into something out of Doctor Who

[LongTomH]

8. Another try at the link:

Acts of defiance against war turned ordinary people into criminals

Forgot to take out the http://

[shenmue]

9. Kudos to them

They have my respect.

:applause:

:loveya:

:patriot:

[foreigncorrespondent]

10. I remember...

...the days when an opposing view never got you a jail sentence. Guess the "good ole' days" are long gone. :(

[Poet Lariat]

11. This is utter madness

They can't stop every voice of dissent. Makes me want to shout even louder.

[Eric J in MN]

12. An unjust war is a "Serious Organised Crime."

Reading the names of the dead is being a good citizen.

[Gyre]

14. I can't believe the English are standing for this!

What is the problem? I refuse to believe that all power has been ceded to a single politician.

Gyre