Occupy returns to Parliament Square – indyrikki
This morning, Occupy activists began another weekend occupation of Parliament Square, writes indyrikki.
Once again, fences have gone up, not just around the grass (supposedly closed for repairs), but also around all the concreted areas, along with high fences around the grass in front of the Supreme Court at the rear of the Square.
GLA notices state that the Square is closed to the public, and warn that “failure to comply with a reasonable request from an authorised officer is a criminal offence” – this begs the question, what is “reasonable”? It’s hard to get any “reason” for the closure, mainly because if the authorities admit it is in order to stop protest, they will fall foul of human rights law, so they contort themselves into totally unreasonable knots to avoid stating the bleeding obvious.
For further details, read the full account on indyrikki’s blog.
Occupy held a week-long rally in Parliament Square during October, and you can read an account of that here.
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“failure to comply with a reasonable request from an authorised officer is a criminal offence”
Interesting use of the word “Criminal”. As far as I am aware, for an “Offence” to be criminal requires there to be a victim. Who might be the victim in this case?
The victim would be ‘The Queen’.
How would she be harmed – physically or financially?
You don’t have to be harmed physically or financially for an offence to have been committed. One of the most recent laws to be mooted and soon to be in the statute books is that of mental stress being caused to another – most usually and obviously by a partner. The Queen – if you hadn’t noticed – is the head of state. Crimes are against the state. The state thinks up and passes the laws. Why else would police officers be obliged to swear allegiance to her ? If you don’t take the oath you don’t get the job. They swear allegiance to no other ‘being’ or religion.
Oh good, I’ll be able to sue you for causing me mental stress. Result.
But you’re not comparing like with like. In this instance, the police would have to prove that the Occupy movement had indeed committed some form of harm. Merely being there would not count as Parliament Square has enjoyed the presence of many, many, MANY people.
You’ve obviously not heard of ‘bye laws’, of which Westminster has many. Pop down there and rub your face in the new mown lawn and find out which one they’ll charge you with. I won’t go bail. I was there during the last ‘occupy’ – believe me they’ll do it. (And ‘no’ I didn’t have a uniform on).
You’ll be aware, then, that these bye-laws need to be made under particular Acts of Parliament and may relate only to such subjects as are covered by these acts. If you’ll look at the lists, you’ll find nothing prohibiting people from simply being there – and if anyone tried to hit me with an offence under a bye-law, it would be a very simple matter to roll over them down at the magistrates’ court later on.
Wonder if the BBC will cover this, don’t hold your breath.
I hate to sound increasingly depressing in my posts Mike, all these protests and hashtags are changing absolutely zero.
I was doing some campaigning around my local area for the foodbank and one of the stores had kindly set up a charity box, next to another charity, (can’t remember what for but in my eyes not as essential) guess which one had more support.
All this whilst big brand electrical items, lots of food and drink (including alcohol) flew off the shelves.
The retail park and Christmas markets were packed.
NO-ONE was talking about any of this.
So much for austerity.
We’ll have to see what happens on May 7, though, won’t we?
It’s all about raising awareness at the moment; you can’t tell me you know what goes into people’s brains.
I’m only going off what I see and hear from people, the 7th May doesn’t even register with 99.99% of those who are spending like there is no tomorrow.
Like I said in a previous comment, there is a worrying amount of people who think those who use foodbanks do so because they are feckless and lazy