
I was nearly arrested today.
That was because I was demonstrating outside the Houses of Parliament, in
Parliament Square to be exact and under a new law that came into force today I was doing so illegally. I was there along with around 200 others to make a stand against the new law, one that I believe marks a terrible infringement upon my civil liberties. I escaped arrest but others were not so lucky.
Surely it is the right of anyone to protest peacefully outside the home of their government? And to have this right taken away (under the auspices of our good friend...*cough*
enemy:
terror) is another marker towards the end of democracy.
Mainstream news is
covering it as we speak but why not join me for a blow by blow account of today's events from an eyewitness?

It started off all quiet as you can see but the police soon showed up in preparation for the demonstration with cameras and videos to record these new criminals...

And then the demonstration started to build up in terms of people, volume and action...

All we wanted was a chance to peacefully demonstrate outside of
our parliament...

And then the police distributed a flyer amongst us, it was a dispersal order under the new legislation and one that
Tim pointed out was contravening British copyright law, as the map shown below came without the required copyright. Tim kindly pointed this out to the police officers present but they seemed unconcerned by matters of the law.

Obviously we ignored the bit of paper and carried on demonstrating and listened to a Palestinian man talk powerfully about repression of freedom of speech and an old lady speak of the days when you could walk down 10 Downing Street.

And then the police swooped on us and before I knew it we were in the thick of it...

Arrests were made, an old lady was dragged off, a middle aged female, the Palestinian man shown on the microphone, a black protester and the man below who resisted arrest quite loudly!
The police did a further charge after this one to disperse the remaining protesters but the battery on my camera was low so I chose this as a wise moment to leave before I ended up in a cell.
I must say, seeing the 5 people arrested was a upsetting experience, it made me so angry to see them manhandling an old lady into the back of a police van. I do remember the look of brave defiance in the eyes of the Palestinian gentlemen, we exchanged peace signs as the police trooped him past me.
And so there it is, 200 people turned out to try and defend the right to peaceful protest and we did a reasonable job of testing the limits of the law. I urge anyone able to attend any further demonstrations to do so, to involve yourself because the more of us there are the better.
They can't arrest us all.