UK: Protestors defy ban to march for troop withdrawal in Iraq
01 October 2007
On 8 October around 5,000 people defied an attempt to ban a weekday march by the Stop the War Coalition calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. The march and rally was timed to coincide with Prime Minister, Gordon Brown's Commons statement on the Anglo-US invasion in which he announced planned troop reductions in Basra. While this was treated by much of the media as the British "end game", more than 2,500 soldiers will remain in Iraq to protect US convoys and patrol the Iranian border. A few days later the Greater London Authority removed the tents of protestors from a peace vigil in Parliament Square.
The rally at Trafalgar Square heard speeches from the former MP, Tony Benn, Walter Wolfgang (who was ejected from a Labour Party conference for objecting to the war in 2005), musician Brian Eno, comedian Mark Thomas, the Respect MP, George Galloway and Ben Griffin, a former SAS trooper. They urged the Prime Minister to use his October statement "to signal a break from George Bush's foreign policy and to bring all the British troops out of Iraq immediately, regardless of US plans." The march then made its way to Parliament in defiance of a police ban. According to the organisers of the march, police told them that all demonstrations within a mile of Parliament were banned while it was sitting and that they needed police permission to hold an event. Although, numerous demonstrations have been held there in recent years a “Sessional Order” creates special exclusion zones in order to silence demonstrators after some MPs complained that they made their life "intolerable".
In particular, Brian Haw and Mark Thomas have been highlighted this attempt to stifle freedom of speech in the vicinity of the Houses of Parliament. While the Home Office issued a last minute denial that there was any attempt to ban the protest a hyperbolic Metropolitan police spokesman argued that the final route met "the requirements to allow MPs to maintain the political process." The former Labour politician, Tony Benn, more accurately summed it up when he said: "The authority for this march derives from our ancient right to free speech and assembly enshrined in our history."
Stop The War Coalition website: http://www.stopwar.org.uk
Mark Thomas website: http://markthomasinfo.com
Brian Haw, peace protestor: http://parliament-square.org.uk
Tony Benn website: http://www.tonybenn.com
George Gallaway website: http://georgegalloway.com