• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• UK: Protesting - an anti social crime?

UK: Protesting - an anti social crime?

01 August 2004

On 25 June, whilst demonstrating outside Caterpillar's financial offices in Solihull at the bulldozer manufacturer's continued sale of machinery to Israel, nine members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign were arrested under the Anti Social Behaviour Act for refusing to provide their names and addresses. The protest was entirely peaceful and had involved the use of megaphones, drums and street theatre. Those arrested were forced to spend 18 hours in a police cell and were not permitted to have a private telephone conversation with a lawyer. Equally alarming are the conditions for bail which stipulate that the accused cannot go within 500 metres of the offices in order to prevent further offences being committed and to protect the children who use the road. The prosecution argued that had these conditions not been in place the campaigners would be capable of resuming their protests, implying that the act of protesting itself is illegal when of course their "crime" was to not provide their personal details to the police when asked. The defendants claim the charges to be in violation of their ECHR right to freedom of expression. The trial takes place on the 17, 18 and 19 January 2005 when the government hopes to successfully establish a precedent for the use of anti-social behaviour legislation in this field.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign can be emailed at: info@palestinecampaign.org (Tel. 0207 700 6192); For more information on the use of ASB legislation against protestors see ASBOwatch: http://www.statewatch.org/asbo/ASBOwatch.html