[Onthebarricades] Repression in the UK

[Andy]

[NOTES:  I saw footage of the protests over the Olympic torch and China in Tibet in London, and as usual there was a lot of police violence and repression, including one man thrown to the ground and pinned, another dragged away while trying to give comments to the media, and police physically pushing activists behind a fence at Downing Street.  There have also been informal news reports that the Chinese security personnel surrounding the flame runner were physically assaulting protesters - and even police!  Meanwhile French police were seen literally sitting on one protester's face, stealing a flag, and brutalising people by pushing them over backwards]
 
*  Council tries to charge fee for student protest
*  MI5 seeks powers to trawl commuters' records
*  MOD tells teachers to rewrite Iraq history
*  Paramilitary police operation hits innocent shoppers in London
*  Headteacher wins appeal over riot police abuse at school
*  Man jailed for 18 months for not giving insubstantial information to police
*  Poole council uses CCTVs to monitor if parents are in right catchment area
*  Animal rights activists effectively interned
*  London councils seek to ban free food
*  Animal rights activist given indefinite (life) sentence
*  Police use intimidation against arms trade movie
*  Peace protesters put on suspect database, car stopped in London
*  Victory for protesters over beating, theft by police
*  Police target free food stall, try to use "dispersal zone" to crush it
*  Government plans to hide GM crop trials
*  Bias against animal rights activists shown in hunter's sentence
*  Police "terror" attack on BBC journalist
*  Attempts to stop entry of Snoop Dogg
*  Aldermaston protest camp outlawed

ASBOTROCITIES
*  Elderly "eccentric" woman under attack for harmless skipping
*  Child jailed for two months for exercising basic right of free association
*  Manic-depressive woman harassed by state
*  Criminalisation of begging condemned, overturned by one judge

*  Heathrow fingerprint plan on hold
*  Foie gras protest attacked by police
*  Activist arrested for giving treesitter water - attempt to starve him out
*  Suspicious death in custody of detained refugee
*  Researchers under attack:  police demand manuscript on terrorism
*  Iraqis deported
*  Government seeks to grab power for executive, declare impunity for corruption
*  Huge jail sentence just for Internet propaganda, recruitment
*  Microchip implants planned

Publicly Archived at Global Resistance:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalresistance

 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/05/nschool105.xml
 
Council charges pupils for protest march 

By Nigel Bunyan
Last Updated: 2:37am GMT 07/02/2008
 
A Labour council has been accused of "flying in the face of democracy" after telling children at a threatened school that they will have to pay to stage a protest march. 

The schoolgirls' protest is supported by their head
Officials at Salford City Council insist that they need £2,500 to cover the cost of "traffic management", and say that pupils rather than taxpayers should foot the bill. 

The move has so angered both staff and pupils at St George's RC High School that they are considering reporting the council to the European Court of Human Rights. 

They say they are being denied a fundamental right to protest. 

Furthermore, they say the officials are being "completely hypocritical" in demanding a charge when they recently paid thousands of pounds for security guards to "manage" a consultation meeting at the school.
Lizzie Finch, 16, one of four Year 11 girls who are coordinating the protest, said yesterday: "It's appalling and outrageous. How dare they try to take away our rights? 
"There is no way we are going to pay this charge because it's completely out of order". 
Another protest leader, Heather Ennis, said: "We are incandescent with rage. We just can't believe they are trying to charge us when 22,000 police officers marched through London recently and didn't get charged a penny. 
"They are trying to stop us because we are kids and we are fighting against their proposals". 
The school's headmaster, Philip Harte, is fully supportive of the girls' stand and has asked the council to withdraw its demand.
So far officials have refused. 
Mr Harte said: "It seems that democracy and Salford is now an oxymoron because they have lost sight of the concept. 
"The level of their hypocricy is also quite breathtaking. As a school we have instilled the principles of fairness and democracy, of doing things through the proper channels, and yet this is the way the children's own council behaves. 
"It's a total disgrace and I'm absolutely convinced it is an act of vindictiveness towards the school". 
The school's deputy head, Peter Fisher, said he was clarification from the European Court on Human Rights on whether the children were being denied their right to peaceful assembly. 
St George's - motto Fight the Good Fight - has been earmarked for closure by 2012 because of an anticipated fall in the number of Catholic children in the area.
This is despite this year's Year 7 intake being massively oversubscribed, and despite Ofsted inspectors describing it as recently as December as "a good school with outstanding features".
Four 16-year-old girls - Lizzie, Heather Ennis, Hannah McCarthy and Becky Traynor - began to coordinate the protest against closure after becoming disenchanted with the "disingenuous" way the council was dealing with the issue. 
They have already set up a group called Justice 4 Georges (sic) and are about to launch a website. 
The teenage protestors initially planned to march on Salford Civic Hall on a Saturday. 
However, after consulting with teachers and local police they amended this to a Sunday protest near the school.
This is scheduled for February 24.
Jill Baker, the council's strategic director of Children's Services, said: "We have no issue with St George's pupils wanting to make their views known in this way. There are, however, real costs to the council in organising the necessary road closures - costs that need to be met from some source.
"Road closure orders were only recently delegated to local authorities and we have a responsibility to our council tax payers to not set a precedent in ultimately passing on costs to them.
"Regardless of the reasons why the road closure was requested, we would be making the same decision. This arrangement does not affect existing long-standing events". 
She added: "Whether or not the school decides to hold this demonstration, I'd like to reassure the pupils that (their) comments and opinions are, of course, valued and being considered". 
A council spokesman said the "typical costs" involved in facilitating the school march would include: 
·  the cost of workers closing the road, putting out cones or diversion signs and collecting them later;
·  the cost of drawing up and publishing formal public notices about the road closure.
She added: "There would also be charges for workers to turn traffic lights to red, and for escort vehicles to supervise the march". 
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/16/uksecurity.terrorism
 
MI5 seeks powers to trawl records in new terror hunt
Counter-terrorism experts call it a 'force multiplier': an attack combining slaughter and electronic chaos. Now Britain's security services want total access to commuters' travel records to help them meet the threat
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor 
The Observer, 
Sunday March 16 2008 

This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday March 16 2008 on p22 of the News section. It was last updated at 01:49 on March 16 2008. 
Millions of commuters could have their private movements around cities secretly monitored under new counter-terrorism powers being sought by the security services.
Records of journeys made by people using smart cards that allow 17 million Britons to travel by underground, bus and train with a single swipe at the ticket barrier are among a welter of private information held by the state to which MI5 and police counter-terrorism officers want access in order to help identify patterns of suspicious behaviour. 
The request by the security services, described by shadow Home Secretary David Davis last night as 'extraordinary', forms part of a fierce Whitehall debate over how much access the state should have to people's private lives in its efforts to combat terrorism. 
It comes as the Cabinet Office finalises Gordon Brown's new national security strategy, expected to identify a string of new threats to Britain - ranging from future 'water wars' between countries left drought-ridden by climate change to cyber-attacks using computer hacking technology to disrupt vital elements of national infrastructure.
The fear of cyber-warfare has climbed Whitehall's agenda since last year's attack on the Baltic nation of Estonia, in which Russian hackers swamped state servers with millions of electronic messages until they collapsed. The Estonian defence and foreign ministries and major banks were paralysed, while even its emergency services call system was temporarily knocked out: the attack was seen as a warning that battles once fought by invading armies or aerial bombardment could soon be replaced by virtual, but equally deadly, wars in cyberspace. 
While such new threats may grab headlines, the critical question for the new security agenda is how far Britain is prepared to go in tackling them. What are the limits of what we want our security services to know? And could they do more to identify suspects before they strike? 
One solution being debated in Whitehall is an unprecedented unlocking of data held by public bodies, such as the Oyster card records maintained by Transport for London and smart cards soon to be introduced in other cities in the UK, for use in the war against terror. The Office of the Information Commissioner, the watchdog governing data privacy, confirmed last night that it had discussed the issue with government but declined to give details, citing issues of national security. 
Currently the security services can demand the Oyster records of specific individuals under investigation to establish where they have been, but cannot trawl the whole database. But supporters of calls for more sharing of data argue that apparently trivial snippets - like the journeys an individual makes around the capital - could become important pieces of the jigsaw when fitted into a pattern of other publicly held information on an individual's movements, habits, education and other personal details. That could lead, they argue, to the unmasking of otherwise undetected suspects. 
Critics, however, fear a shift towards US-style 'data mining', a controversial technique using powerful computers to sift and scan millions of pieces of data, seeking patterns of behaviour which match the known profiles of terrorist suspects. They argue that it is unfair for millions of innocent people to have their privacy invaded on the off-chance of finding a handful of bad apples. 
'It's looking for a needle in a haystack, and we all make up the haystack,' said former Labour minister Michael Meacher, who has a close interest in data sharing. 'Whether all our details have to be reviewed because there is one needle among us - I don't think the case is made.' 
Jago Russell, policy officer at the campaign group Liberty, said technological advances had made 'mass computerised fishing expeditions' easier to undertake, but they offered no easy answers. 'The problem is what do you do once you identify somebody who has a profile that suggests suspicions,' he said. 'Once the security services have identified somebody who fits a pattern, it creates an inevitable pressure to impose restrictions.' 
Individuals wrongly identified as suspicious might lose high-security jobs, or have their immigration status brought into doubt, he said. Ministers are also understood to share concerns over civil liberties, following public opposition to ID cards, and the debate is so sensitive that it may not even form part of Brown's published strategy. 
[.]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/iraq-teachers-told-to-rewrite-history-795711.html

Iraq: teachers told to rewrite history
MoD accused of sending propaganda to schools 
By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Friday, 14 March 2008 
Britain's biggest teachers' union has accused the Ministry of Defence of breaking the law over a lesson plan drawn up to teach pupils about the Iraq war. The National Union of Teachers claims it breaches the 1996 Education Act, which aims to ensure all political issues are treated in a balanced way. 
Teachers will threaten to boycott military involvement in schools at the union's annual conference next weekend, claiming the lesson plan is a "propaganda" exercise and makes no mention of any civilian casualties as a result of the war. 
They believe the instructions, designed for use during classroom discussions in general studies or personal, social and health education (PSE) lessons, are arguably an attempt to rewrite the history of the Iraq invasion just as the world prepares to mark its fifth anniversary.
Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the NUT, said: "This isn't an attack on the military - nothing of the sort. I know they've done valuable work in establishing peace in some countries. It is an attack on practices that we cannot condone in schools. It is a question of whether you present fair and balanced views or put forward prejudice and propaganda to youngsters."
At the heart of the union's concern is a lesson plan commissioned by an organisation called Kids Connections for the Ministry of Defence aimed at stimulating classroom debate about the Iraq war. 
In a "Students' Worksheet" which accompanies the lesson plan, it stresses the "reconstruction" of Iraq, noting that 5,000 schools and 20 hospitals have been rebuilt. But there is no mention of civilian casualties. 
In the "Teacher Notes" section, it talks about how the "invasion was necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam Hussein" but it fails to mention the lack of United Nations backing for the war. The notes also use the American spelling of "program".
Addressing whether the MoD should be providing materials for schools, Mr Sinnott said that he did not object, as long as the material was accurate, presented responsibly and contained a balanced view of opinions.
The union has protested to the Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, who has referred the complaint to the MoD. In a letter to Mr Balls, Mr Sinnott said: "I have to say that were the MoD pack to be distributed and followed without the legally required 'balanced presentation of opposing views' there would, in my view, be very serious risk of a finding of non-compliance with section 406 (of the 1996 Education Act) at least. 
"I do not doubt that there would be many members of this union who would not accept as 'fact' the assertions made particularly in the Teacher Notes, nor, I think, could some of the assertions made in the Student Worksheet be regarded as non-controversial."
Mr Sinnott reminded Mr Balls that a High Court judge had ruled that the film An Inconvenient Truth, by the Oscar-winning former American vice-president Al Gore, could not be used in schools without teachers counteracting some of the assertions made in it. 
Mr Balls sought to distance himself from supporting the material. 
He said: "I am sure you are aware my department does not promote or endorse specific resources or methods of teaching for use in schools but I appreciate you drawing this to my attention." Mr Balls added that he had instructed his officials "to take this matter up" with the MoD. 
A spokesman for the MoD said the ministry had consulted with interested parties over the proposed lesson plan in order to ensure it had the support of the education community. "We did ask the Stop The War coalition to take part although it refused."
The spokesman added that the programme was "a set of web-based resources" whose use was "completely voluntary".
"We have consulted widely with teachers and students during the development of these products and feedback from schools has been extremely encouraging," he added. 
"Teachers and students found them to be valuable and fun resources for applied learning. 
"They are designed to support teachers in delivering a whole range of subjects across the national curriculum and its equivalents in Scotland and Wales.
"We are happy to engage with the NUT and we will be writing to them."
Union members say they are also worried that armed forces recruitment fairs in schools glamorise the job by citing exotic countries that recruits will visit but fail to mention that they may be required to kill people. 
According to an independent assessment of the MoD's recruitment material by the Joseph Rowntree Trust, however, the material concerned was "very dubious". The trust said it had used misleading marketing with advertising campaigns that "glamorise warfare, omit vital information and fail to point out the risks and responsibilities associated with a forces career".
Mr Sinnott said: "On their recruitment material, it tells what an exotic lifestyle this can be, but it doesn't mention that being in the military involves killing people. These things don't feature as they should in a proper, balanced view of what it is like being in the armed forces."
What the MoD's guide says... and what it omits
* "Iraq was invaded early 2003 by a United States coalition. Twenty-nine other countries, including the UK, also provided troops... Iraq had not abandoned its nuclear and chemical weapons development program". After the first Gulf War, "Iraq did not honour the cease-fire agreement by surrendering weapons of mass destruction..."
The reality: The WMD allegation, central to the case for war, proved to be bogus. David Kay, appointed by the Bush administration to search for such weapons after the invasion, found no evidence of a serious programme or stockpiling of WMDs. The "coalition of the willing" was the rather grand title of a rag-tag group of countries which included Eritrea, El Salvador and Macedonia.
* "The invasion was also necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam, an oppressive dictator, from power, and bring democracy to Iraq".
The reality: Regime change was not the reason given in the run-up to the invasion - the US and UK governments had been advised it would be against international law. Saddam was regarded as an ally of the West while he was carrying out some of the worst of his atrocities. As for democracy, elections were held in Iraq during the occupation and have led to a sectarian Shia government. Attempts by the US to persuade the government to be more inclusive towards minorities have failed.
* "Over 7,000 British troops remain in Iraq... to contribute to reconstruction, training Iraqi security forces... They continue to fight against a strong militant Iraqi insurgency."
The reality: The number of British troops in Iraq is now under 5,000. They withdrew from their last base inside Basra city in September and are now confined to the airport where they do not take part in direct combat operations. 
* "The cost of UK military operations in Iraq for 2005/06 was £958m."
The reality: The cost of military operations in Iraq has risen by 72 per cent in the past 12 months and the estimated cost for this year is £1.648bn. The House of Commons defence committee said it was "surprised" by the amount of money needed considering the slowing down of the tempo of operations.
* "Over 312,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped (Police, Army and Navy)."
The reality: The Iraqi security forces have been accused, among others by the American military, of running death squads targeting Sunnis. In Basra, the police became heavily infiltrated by Shia militias and British troops had to carry out several operations against them. On one occasion British troops had to smash their way into a police station to rescue two UK special forces soldiers who had been seized by the police.
* "A total of 132 UK military personnel have been killed in Iraq."
The reality: The figure is 175 since the invasion of 2003. A British airman died in a rocket attack at the airport two weeks ago despite British troops not going into Basra city on operations. Conservative estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the invasion stand at around 85,000.
* "From hospitals to schools to wastewater treatment plants, the presence of coalition troops is aiding the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq."
The reality: Five years after "liberation", Baghdad still only has a few hours of intermittent power a day. Children are kidnapped from schools for ransom and families of patients undergoing surgery at hospitals are advised to buy and bring in blood from sellers who congregate outside.

http://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/content/hackney/gazette/news/story.aspx?brand=HKYGOnline&category=news&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newshkyg&itemid=WeED04%20Apr%202008%2010%3A18%3A52%3A127
 
RIOT COPS SWOOP ON BLACKSTOCK ROAD
hg.editorial at archant.co.uk 
04 April 2008 

Hundreds of police officers descend on Blackstock Road 

Hundreds of riot cops swooped on a notorious Finsbury Park street where criminal gangs have been flourishing.

More than 600 officers descended on Blackstock Road in a massive show of force at 2.15pm on Thursday.

Cops showed they meant business as a huge surge of officers sealed off both ends of the road. 

They arrested 35 people on suspicion of handling stolen goods and other offences and raided 19 shops and cafes during Operation Mista. 

Detectives have long suspected the thriving black market in Blackstock Road is fuelling street crime across London.

During a year-long surveillance operation, they found the busy shopping street to be at the centre of criminal networks. Gangs have been money laundering, selling fake documents, and drug dealing. One mobile phone company reported 40 per cent of all stolen handsets could be traced to the area.

Chief Supt Bob Carr, in charge of the operation, said he hoped the raid would prevent criminals from gravitating towards the area. 

"We cannot allow people perceived to be successful through their criminality to have a negative impact on our communities."
 
http://www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/2008/032708/news032708_20.html
 
Headteacher wins 'riot police' appeal

AN appeal lodged by Hampstead School headteacher Jacques Szemalikowski has been upheld by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Mr Szemalikowski's complaint alleged riot police, who attended an incident at the Westbere Road school in 2006, were heavy-handed and racially motivated in their treatment of students. Mr Szemalikowski said: "It means a piece of evidence will now be included - two testimonies. One from an assistant head and one from a deputy head. I'm pleased. Had I not thought there were grounds I wouldn't have resubmitted them."
The complaint will now be reinvestigated by the Directorate of Professional Standards.
 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3730133.ece
 
April 12, 2008
Terrorist's brother kept quiet about e-mail that spoke of dying for Allah
Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent 
The brother of an Islamic terrorist who drove a flaming Jeep into Glasgow airport was convicted yesterday of failing to tell police about the mission. 
Sabeel Ahmed received an e-mail from his brother Kafeel telling him to look after their mother and father and saying: "It's about time that we give up our lives and our families for the sake of Islam to please Allah." 
Sabeel, an NHS doctor, did not read the e-mail until the evening after the attack but still did not tell police about it. Yesterday he admitted failing to disclose information to police and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. 
He will be released from custody and voluntarily deported to India almost immediately because of time in jail he has already served. 
At the end of June last year Kafeel had targeted London nightclubs with two car bombs that were designed to "maximise the loss of life" but they failed to detonate. 
Knowing that the police were closing in, he instead tried to drive a burning vehicle into the airport on June 30. But he could not get through the glass doors and suffered severe burns from which he later died. 
Kafeel's e-mail directed Sabeel to online documents containing his will and instructions on how to mislead investigators. Part of it read: "This is a project I was working on for some time now. Everything else was a lie and I hope you can forgive me for being such a good liar. It was necessary." 
The message added: "Inshallah by the time you get this message I should have achieved one of the two goals by the will of Allah." 
Jonathan Laidlaw, for the prosecution, told the Old Bailey how Kafeel aimed for the entrance doors of the airport but crashed into the pillars. He said: "Despite his efforts, the vehicle became trapped. Those who witnessed him described a set and determined face as he stared forward. 
"His passenger lowered his window and threw a petrol bomb across the bonnet in the direction of the taxi rank and then threw a second of these devices in the opposite direction. At the same time the driver, the defendant's brother, began to pour and splash fuel from a can on to the area outside the car window and appeared to throw a petrol bomb. 
"He got out of the vehicle and was engulfed in flames that swept around the Jeep and terminal building. He appeared to try and prevent others from getting to him or the vehicle. He kicked out but eventually, he being on fire, he was extinguished, subdued, handcuffed and arrested." 
Sentencing Sabeel, Mr Justice Calvert-Smith told him: "Just before he \ set off on the attack he sent you a text message telling you to access the site to which he had saved his document. It is clear that Kafeel Ahmed wrote it in anticipation of his own death in the hope that his body may be unrecognisable and unidentifiable, and asked you to keep up a pretence that he was in Iceland on some secret project connected with his work as a scientist. 
"It is clear you did not receive it until afterwards. Having opened the document on the website and realising your brother had been involved in a very serious offence, you kept that to yourself rather than going to the authorities. I accept there is no sign of you being an extremist or party to extremist views." 
Bilal Abdullah, 28, and Mohammed Asha, 27, will go on trial this year for conspiracy to cause explosions. 
I wouldn't grass in my brother, and it's plain wrong in my view that failing to do so is a crime. Blood is very much thicker than water, and that is a 'reasonable excuse' for keeping quiet in my book. Compulsion to do the immoral should have no place in law
Jim, eXETER, 
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/7341179.stm
 
Council admits spying on family 

Poole council admitted using RIPA powers on six occasions
A council has admitted spying on a family using laws to track criminals and terrorists to find out if they were really living in a school catchment. 
A couple and their three children were put under surveillance without their knowledge by Poole Borough Council for more than two weeks. 
The council admitted using powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) on six occasions in total. 
Three of those were for suspected fraudulent school place applications. 
It said two offers of school places were withdrawn as a consequence. 
Human rights pressure group Liberty called the spying "ridiculously disproportionate" and "intrusive". 
James Welch, legal director for Liberty, said: "It's one thing to use covert surveillance in operations investigating terrorism and other serious crimes, but it has come to a pretty pass when this kind of intrusive activity is used to police school catchment areas. 

Mother on council's 'outrageous' spying on her family
"This is a ridiculously disproportionate use of RIPA and will undermine public trust in necessary and lawful surveillance." 
RIPA legislation allows councils to carry out surveillance if it suspects criminal activity. 
On its website, the Home Office says: "The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) legislates for using methods of surveillance and information gathering to help the prevention of crime, including terrorism." 
It goes on to say the act allows the interception of communications, carrying out of surveillance and the use of covert human intelligence sources. 
Poole council said it used the legislation to watch a family at home and in their daily movements because it wanted to know if they lived in the catchment area for a school, which they wanted their three-year-old daughter to attend. 
It said directed surveillance was carried out by a council officer who was fully trained and authorised to exercise RIPA powers, once it had decided it may be a criminal matter. 
'Potential criminal matter' 
The council is keen to ensure that the information given by parents who apply for school places is true 

Tim Martin, Poole Borough Council
Tim Martin, head of legal and democratic services at Poole Borough Council, said: "The council is committed to investigating the small minority of people who attempt to break the law and affect the quality of life for the majority of law-abiding residents in Poole. 
"On a small number of occasions, RIPA procedures have been used to investigate potentially fraudulent applications for school places. 
"In such circumstances, we have considered it appropriate to treat the matter as a potential criminal matter. 
"The council is keen to ensure that the information given by parents who apply for school places is true. 
"This protects the majority of honest parents against the small number of questionable applications. 
"An investigation may actually satisfy the council that the application is valid, as happened in this case."  
 
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news616.htm
 
CAGE THE RAGE
INTERNMENT IS NEW TACTIC TO DEAL WITH ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
"This is just the latest example of the state attempting to decapitate the animal rights movement - but we're not going away" - SPEAK campaigner.
"What people outside the animal rights movement don't seem to appreciate is that once these moves have been practised on us, they are expanded to everyone expressing dissent - just look at how PHA injunctions attacked first us, then the peace movement, then the environmentalists and finally the climate camp" - an Animal Rights Legal Advisor
The screws have been tightened on the animal rights (AR) movement yet again. In this country, and in the US, there has been a serious state attempt to deal with the strength of the animal rights movement by using an extra-legal form of internment. Currently the three most prominent activists from the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign - Greg Avery, Natasha Avery and Heather Nicholson - are all on remand, after high profile arrests back on May 1st (see SchNEWS 585). They are charged with 'conspiracy to blackmail'. Now the same applies to the main spokesman for the SPEAK campaign, Mel Broughton. 
Mel was arrested in his home at 5.30am on December 12th - and he's been held on remand ever since on charges of arson and 'conspiracy to blackmail'. Meanwhile campaigners against the Sequani animal labs in Ledbury are on trial for conspiracy to breach Sections 145 and 146 of the SOCPA - laws especially introduced to protect 'animal research' facilities.
SPEAK (www.speakcampaigns.org) are fighting against the new Oxford University primate laboratory, referred to as being of 'national importance' by Lord Sainsbury, unelected science minister and aggressive lobbyist for GM crops amongst other profitable er, sorry, progressive issues. Back in June, SchNEWS reported how a senior Thames Valley police officer, Inspector Shead, was caught on tape promising to 'wage a dirty war' against the SPEAK campaign (see SchNEWS 590) and 'persecute' spokesman Mel Broughton - indeed 'to prosecute the sh*t out of him'. Now the meaning of that has become clear - the shattering of the AR movement by any means necessary. A SPEAK campaigner told us, "We know they've been gunning for Mel for a long time - but this isn't a one man campaign. It is basically internment - everything about this campaign is peaceful and legal. The big picture is that the police want to smash SPEAK and SHAC.''
Aspects of the raids, taken in context with other repression around the country, demonstrate that the police's main strategy is disruption. During Operation Achilles - the raids which netted the SHAC organisers - huge quantities of leaflets, cash etc was seized as 'evidence', obviously damaging the ability of the campaign to continue. One campaigner arrested during the initial sweep told SchNEWS how the police pressured them to try and secure their Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) key to their computers. In November, police wrote letters demanding that the passwords for encrypted files on seized computers be released under threat of legal action. Campaigners refused to back down and as yet no legal action has been taken.
LOVE SHAC
The reason the state is using conspiracy charges is they like their all encompassing vagueness. Rather than having to prove specific criminal activities, a huge quantity of evidence can be produced from which 'inferences' can be drawn. In the SHAC case over 15,000 pages of documents have been produced, including transcripts from bugs placed in hire cars and into the wall of, what the prosecution are referring to as, 'the SHAC house'. 
Also included are transcripts of conversations made by one of the accused from prison. However there is not one shred of evidence that points to direct engagement in criminal activities (beyond such trivia as trespass). According to one source, the evidence is bizarre - "it includes family photos - loads of stuff that hasn't got anything to do with animal rights or demos or anything..." 
The trial is expected to last six months - so even if the three are acquitted they will have spent the best part of two years unable to take part in any effective campaigning. If they are convicted it will pave the way to repeat the tactics with other campaign groups - except those couched in the vaguest non-threatening terms - and especially those that are actually effective. 
"The danger of this sort of accusation is that simply running a campaign could be described as blackmail. Obviously a blackmailer's threats do not have to be illegal, simply the suggestion that if you don't do X we will do Y could be construed as blackmail" (AR legal advisor) - i.e. the very act of organising demos could become a very serious criminal offence, punishable by years inside. So once more we see laws drafted to protect individuals being used (or twisted) to protect corporations. SHAC has to be the legally most watertight campaign in the UK. Everything they publish is checked by a barrister beforehand. As our source told us, " They've got masses of evidence of demos being organised of course but most of them are organised with the police! Every campaign has a target - even Greenpeace send out action e-mail alerts! How can what we do be described as blackmail?"
The case of the Sequani Six is now entering its second week in Birmingham Crown Court. Sequani are a vivisection laboratory based in Ledbury, Herefordshire and are the latest beneficiaries of a law specifically targeted at those who campaign for animal rights. Six protesters, including one 80-year-old woman are charged with conspiracy to "interfere with contractual relationships so as to harm animal research organisation" under section 145 of SOCPA. 
To add insult to injury the judge in the trial has admitted that he regularly enjoys hunting - but we're sure he won't let that unduly prejudice him.
It has been suggested by top cop Anton Setchell (ACPO National Coordinator for Domestic Extremism) that the SOCPA laws, which effectively prohibit demos outside establishments connected with animal research, were not drafted widely enough. He wants them expanded to cover any groups that engage in sustained campaigning. The National Extremism Tactical Co-ordinating Unit's website (www.netcu.org.uk) says, "The term 'domestic extremism' applies to unlawful action that is part of a protest or campaign. It is most often associated with 'single-issue' protests, such as animal rights, anti-war, anti-globalisation and anti-GM (genetically modified) crops.". Alarmingly section 149 of SOCPA allows the secretary of state to declare any business to be the equivalent of an animal research establishment without going back to Parliament.
Despite the full agencies of the state being bent on the movement's destruction, with widespread abuse of public order law and the shutting down of animal rights info stalls - they're not going away! Demos continue despite police intimidation. Vivisectors and those who deal with them are still firmly in the movement's sights and a glance at the websites demonstrate the extent to which this struggle is still gaining in strength, and going global. As a SHAC activist told us "They think that by taking out a few key people they can stop our movement but for every two they take away there will be four to take their place. The public support has been amazing..."
* SPEAK www.speakcampaigns.org
* SHAC www.shac.net 
* STOPSequani www.stopsequani.co.uk

http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news609.htm
 
London Councils, which represents London's 33 local authorities, is preparing the tenth London Local Authorities Bill for wheeling out on November 27th. Amongst the knee-jerk reactions in the bill include cracking down on chewing gum dropping and litter, and there's also a section about 'distribution of free refreshments' - which would effectively ban soup kitchens. Giving out food to homeless people will be outlawed in Westminster - where 250-300 sleep rough every night - and possibly beyond. In the Evening Standard the Westminster Council have been saying that such hand-outs 'keep people on the street'.
 
http://breakallchains.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html
 
Spirit of Freedom (January 2007) 
Produced by
EARTH LIBERATION PRISONERS SUPPORT NETWORK

"I thank you all dearly for writing"
(Jon Ablewhite, Animal Rights Prisoner)

Welcome to the January 2007 edition of Spirit of Freedom.  As some people
will be aware, last month, British Animal Rights prisoner, Don Currie, was
given a virtual life sentence called an "indefinite sentence" with a minimum
tariff of six-years.  Below ELP attempts to explain how the sentence works.
We hope our report is accurate and it does represent ELP's understanding of
how this new sentence works.  But we would like to point out that this type
of sentence is relatively new within the British legal system and therefore
no one is quite sure of its full implications yet.  If anyone has any
questions or concerns about our report please contact ELP and we will try to
assist you however we can.  Don's sentence is a shock and we ask that
everyone supports Don as best they can.  Remember, no matter where you are
in the world, support the eco-prisoners and no compromise in defence of
Mother Earth!
 
DON CURRIE SENTENCED

On the 7th of December 2006 British Animal Rights prisoner, Donald Currie,
was given an Indefinite Prison Sentence with a minimum tariff of six years.
This is a new type of sentence, so here is ELP's explanation about how it
works.

Traditionally in Britain people are given either Fixed Term sentences or
Life sentences.  With a fixed term sentence anyone who is given a sentence
of more than four years is given an automatic Parole Hearing date at the
half way stage of their sentence.

For example, a prisoner who is serving 12-years, will automatically be
considered for parole after 6 years.  At the parole hearing the Parole Board
will decide whether to release the prisoner or say they must to serve more
of their sentence before their release.

The Parole Board can keep rejecting a prisoners parole application up until
the point the prisoner has served two-thirds of their sentence; at this
point the prisoner must be released "on license" under the supervision of a
probation officer.  So in the case of a prisoner sentenced to 12-years, it
means they will serve between 6-8 years inside.

With an Indefinite Prison Sentence the Judge decides what is an appropriate
sentence for the crime and then gives the prisoner a minimum tariff to
represent when they would receive their first parole hearing.  At that first
parole hearing the Parole Board can either choose to release the prisoner or
return them to prison.

So in Don Currie's case the Judge obviously felt he should receive a 12-year
sentence and so gave Don a minimum tariff of six years.

However, the crucial point is that because Don has NOT been given a Fixed
Term sentence there is no two-thirds stage of his sentence.  This means he
has no automatic release date.

If the Parole Board wishes to they can keep rejecting an Indefinite Sentence
prisoners Parole Applications for the rest of the prisoners life.  This
means Don will serve a minimum 6 years inside, but if the Parole Board
wishes, he could end up serving 8, 12, 16, 26, 36, 46, etc., years in
prison.  He may even die in prison without ever being released!

The jailing of Don to an Indefinite Prison Sentence is an outrage.  Don has
not killed or physically injured anyone.  He has destroyed the property of
animal abusers and if you believe the British mainstream media he was a very
dedicated ALF activist.

The use of an Indefinite Prison Sentence against an animal rights activist
is a highly political sentence and ELP hopes that Don's lawyers are
appealing against this political sentence
 
http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news625.htm
 
SHOWSTOPPERS
AS POLICE SEEK TO AXE ANTI-ARMS TRADE MOVIE
Yet another below the belt blow to civil liberties was struck by the Sussex Plod this Monday. The long-awaited world premier of SchMOVIES 'On The Verge'- the cinematic debut of the Smash Edo campaign - was cancelled after police intervention. In the days that followed, across the country venues due to show the film on the forthcoming tour have received visits from the police and licensing authorities keen to stop screenings.
Early on Monday evening, the SchNEWS crew were squeezing into our tuxedoes and ballgowns ready for the red carpet reception at local independent cinema the Duke of York's (DoY). But barely had the first champagne cork been popped when we received a call to tell us the show was cancelled. The cinema had been contacted at 4.15pm by environmental health officer, Martin New, claiming that as the film does not have an official BBFC classification, the DoY would be in breach of their licence if the screening went ahead. The timing left the cinema with no option but to cancel. According to one source, the police then phoned the cinema and warned them that they should "bolt the doors" as these protesters were "extremely violent" and likely to try and force entry! One manager said the decision to question the film's classification this way "was virtually unprecedented in my experience".
Yer ever-good-in-a-crisis SchNEWS crew swiftly relocated the showing to a local pub, where around 140 people (over two screenings) were able to watch the 'illicit' film.
THE PLOD THICKENS
The next day, local rag the Argus ran the story as front page news: "Anti-war movie banned by council at the last minute". They quoted top cop Chief Inspector Lawrence Taylor denying any police involvement in the sting, saying, "We would never get involved with the certification of a film - it is not something we do. It was as much a surprise to us as anyone else". Well it must have then come as a real surprise when, the next day, B&H council's press office confirmed that the police had in fact called them up and prompted their action.
Swiftly back-tracking, Sussex Police pinned the blame on a mysterious 'junior officer' (and inadvertently admitted they don't bother knowing the law regarding showing films!): "Brighton and Hove Police were aware that 'On The Verge' was being shown at the Duke of York cinema. However, we do not become involved in, nor do we have knowledge of, the law relating to film certification. That is a matter for Brighton & Hove City Council. However, a junior officer, who is not based in the city, alerted the city council to the showing and they advised the cinema of its responsibilities.". So either Lawrence Taylor was lying or his rank-and-file are showing a little more initiative than usual.
Whoever the 'junior officer' is, it seems she/he's been pretty busy organising a coordinated clampdown on the film. By this afternoon venues due to show the film across the country were receiving visits from the police. Staff at the Arthouse Community Cafe in Bedford Place, Southampton were approached at 11am by police and licensing officers. Threats were made concerning their licensing if the film, due to be shown on Thursday night was screened. Jani Franck of the Community Cafe said, "I grew up in South Africa and this feels awfully familiar. This has nothing to do with protecting the public - this is nothing but censorship". 
As SchNEWS goes to press, the first tour venues in Bath, Southampton, Oxford and Chichester have all been visited and leaned on to pull the plug. 
Classifications for similar independent films are not normally an issue - especially for private showings where no money changes hands (and with official BBFC certifications costing up to a grand, it would kill any local independent no-budget film making). Given that there is no swearing or nudity in the film, and that the only violence in the film is at the hands of Sussex police, offences against public morals are unlikely. But in an unusual bout of sensitivity towards the public, police decided that although it's OK to violently attack protesters, it might disturb members of the public were they to see it on film.
Steve Bishop of SchMovies told us exclusively "We're not exactly surprised by the police action. Yeah, the film doesn't have a certificate but since when has this applied to productions with a budget of under five hundred quid! What next, a PG certificate for yer wedding video? The only reason they want to ban this is 'cuz it shows 'em in a bad light."
* Want to see the film they tried (are trying) to ban? People are re-arranging showings in many of the towns - for more info check out www.smashedo.org.uk or local Indymedia postings. 
* Interested in putting on a screening, e-mail: on-the-verge at hotmail.co.uk
* View the trailer at www.schnews.org.uk/schmovies/index-on-the-verge

http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news625.htm
 
WATCHING YOU 
...IN BIG BROTHER BRITAIN
As they travelled through the City of London on private business on 31st July 2005, two peace campaigners - John Catt, an 80 year old pensioner at the time and his daughter Linda (with no criminal record between them) - were stopped and their vehicle searched under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 by City of London police. They were both threatened with arrest if they refused to answer police questions.
Unbeknown to them the vehicle in which they were travelling had triggered an alert as it passed an automatic vehicle number plate recognition camera - part of the cops' 'Ring of steel' around the City of London. 
After they made a complaint about both the manner and the circumstances in which they were stopped, it was revealed that it had resulted from a police marker being placed against their vehicle on the Police National Computer (PNC) by Sussex Police.
A follow-up formal complaint to Sussex Police discovered that the PNC marker had been placed against their vehicle as a result of being spotted near EDO MBM demonstrations in Brighton. The marker stated "OF INTEREST TO PUBLIC ORDER UNIT SUSSEX". 
Sussex Police justified the big brothering stance on the grounds that the vehicle had been seen at three demos outside the arms factory, which "were associated with a campaign which gives rise to crime, disorder and the deployment of significant resources. Sightings of the vehicle may give rise to crime, disorder and the investigation, prevention and detection of crime" . A damning verdict indeed. The complaint was rejected - guilt by association is all in a days work. 
Last week their appeal to the IPCC has also fallen on deaf ears with the independent body ruling that this type of harassment is just the ticket for Supreme Leader Gordon Brown's busy bobbies. 
You have been warned. 

NO FOREST FOR THE WICKED
There was victory in court this month (3rd) for voluntary sector group the Celtic Heritage Trust (CHT) in their case against Gwent Police force, who had beaten the crap out of them for no reason at a Easter celebration at Wentwood Forest, Wales, last year.
OK, so yer resource-strapped SchNEWS can't win 'em all and misses the odd story here and there -. so let us take you back to the golden days of early spring 2007...
The all chat and smiles not-for-profit CHT, an educational group who peddle a mix of environmental and sustainability information - were invited to take their library and youth cinema to attend an Easter Gathering festival to be held at Wentwood Forest. They thought it would be a good place to follow their not extremely anti-state mission of encouraging young people to vote and to understand how important it is to become an active citizen.
Upon their arrival they were shepherded in to the site by police usual florescent-jacketed staff and proceeded to set up and their pitch and began spreading the message - and were pleased to sign up thirty new volunteers keen to help with their subversive programmes of tree planting and working with a pensioners gardening initiative.
But little did they know that the organisers of the festival had committed that most heinous of 21st century crimes and had not got prior permission for their do. This meant their day was about to take a frightening turn for the worse. 
Karen Sumser-Lupson told SchNEWS "In the late afternoon a police presence became evident and the young people began to clear up the picnic area and were filmed packing up audio equipment - they were without a doubt complying with the orders of the Gwent police force. Our organisationwas not at any time informed of what was happening even though we attempted to speak with officers. Some two hours later another police force dressed in black riot apparel appeared - and within five minutes of their arrival all hell broke loose." She reports how one cop came at her with baton raised, tucked his shield under her feet and sent her flying. All their equipment was seized - including suspiciously dangerous items like books and film equipment. 
She then tells how she witnessed (all it of it handily recorded on police video), "police officers striking and beating young individuals for truly no reason at all. I am still stunned by the events of that afternoon. Never have I seen such an awful bloodbath meted out on peaceful individuals some of which were barely 16 years of age."
After the baton-twirling display, the cops finally said they were free to go - battered and shocked, they'd barely got a mile down the road before their vehicle was were pulled over and they were ordered out of it. Police seized it and drove off - leaving the CHT staff to walk nearly ten miles out of the forest. A few miles down the road, and some hours trudging later, they actually came across their truck - crashed with one of the tyres hanging off. It was later moved to a Police holding bay where it was impounded for two months as it was 'unfit for the road'!
The Gwent Police investigation (unknown whether it was worked on by the 'Seaside Five' - see SchNEWS 623) eventually led to 23 defendants, including the two CHT staff present,. facing a court case under Section 63, of the CJA for failing to leave the land. The defendants were originally split into three groups. By November magistrates duly found all the accused guilty, handing out large fines and ASBO's all round.
Karen's conviction was based on video evidence of her assault in which they decided she "did not look scared enough". Yes, in modern Britain your facial expression will he taken down, subjectively assessed and used against you in a court of law. 
Fair play to Karen though - they lodged an immediate crown court appeal which finally got to court at the start of March. They successful and swiftly managed to convince a jury of the real facts of the case and their convictions - and those of the other 21 people - were quashed. CHT have also submitted complaints to the 'Independent' Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) - but are yet to hear back how Gwent police will no doubt be blameless and face no further charges, but a double SchNEWS thumbs up for their dogged persistence... 

http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news623.htm
 
Met Cops hit a new low this week - targeting a soup kitchen handing out food to the homeless. The 'Reclaim your food' collective were handing out free soup near The Oval, London (as they do every Sunday). Twenty cops in two vans - plus a CCTV crew - turned up to ensure that this act of flagrant charity did not go unpunished. 
Enraged by the free organic bread, skipped soup and insurrectionary rhubarb crumble on offer, the plod had no choice but to act. Two of the servers were arrested, while everyone else was held in a kettle and photographed. All this because they were causing alarm, harassment and distress to the local 'community' and apparently 'attracting crack dealers' (well we all know how much they love a good crumble with the cops!)
SchNEWS's man on the scene has made a short film - see www.veoh.com/videos/v6333168tbH5b25n
* Please support reclaim your food. Email: reclaim_your_food_brixton at riseup.net 

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/03/392723.html
 
Reclaim your Food stall finally criminalised 
endo | 02.03.2008 17:39 | Free Spaces | Repression | London 
Police has definitely intervened in the weekly Sunday free food action today 2nd March 2008 in the Brixton Oval. 
 
The collective has been setting up a free food stall on Sundays' afternoon in Brixton. Last Sunday, the metropolitan police already hassled the action without any sound argument and started asking for names and addresses. Check:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/southcoast/2008/02/391653.html for more details. 

Today they have gone further with already two arrests at 16h00. The first arrested person had given his name and address but then refused to "disperse"; a man game him advice and the phone number of a lawyer and a few minutes later he was then arrested too. 

Police has been asking for people's names and addresses indiscriminately and telling people to disperse under threat of arrest to re-enter the Dispersal Zone covering Brixton town centre. People are still in the zone refusing to disperse. 

A policeman argued that a free food stall would attract drug dealing back to the zone, but he insinuated that other activities would not. A bike workshop was set up at the very same place where Reclaim your Food set their stall. 
 
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/southcoast/2008/02/391653.html?c=on#comments
 
South London's very own "Food not Bombs" project - the Brixton-based "Reclaim Your Food" collective - today (Sunday 17th Feb) faced their first intervention by the Metropolitan Police. 

The collective had their stall set up for roughly an hour when their allegedly criminal activities caught the eye of Lambeth's finest law enforcement officials. 

Two white male police officers approached the collective and began to browse the selection of free leaflets and pamphlets offered. Whilst one of them (LX 412) appeared to be relatively disinterested in the actions of the suspected offenders, Officer LX 582 was significantly more aggressive and confrontational in his approach. 

Whilst said officers originally appeared to be inspecting the proceedings out of a territorial sense of curiosity, 582 began demanding the names and addresses of people without any suggestion of what offence may have been committed or invoking any legislation confirming his right to do so. 

Once met with a variety of "no comment" responses, 582 asserted that their small stall in Brixton town square was, in fact, an obstruction of the highway. When the legitimiacy of this application of the Highways Act was challenged, his concerns became for the health and safety of those consuming the food. Were activists in posession of the correct certificates? Then, when activists appeared bemused at the notion of a police officer to attempting to enforce Health & Safety law, it was briefly mooted that a Public Order offence was being committed. This supposed Public Order offence rapidly transformed into an excuse to use Anti-Social Behaviour law, allowing them to place a Dispersion Order on the group of apparently delinquent youths. Names and addresses were taken under threat of arrest, and backup called for. 

The backup consisted of 2 Community Support Officers - LX 7268, 7133 and another 2 PC's - LX 284, 816 and (presumably) the Sargeant - **, topped off with Police Vans. Other officers arrived after the initial count, but did not have their numbers documented by those observing. 

The Collective were ordered to disperse and prohibited under threat of arrest to re-enter the Dispersal Zone covering Brixton town centre for the next 24 hours. 

PC LX 582 rather greedily helped himself to large volumes of the radical information available and, when questioned, claimed that he went "on more demos than you do". As he was not recognized as being part of the FIT Team, it could only be assumed that he was one of the dangerous hardcore revolutionaries on the Police Federation march. 

All this whilst members of the public, some homeless, clamoured to get what was left of the free vegan food fest before it had to be taken away. Other members of the public documented the Police behaviour on camera and challenged the Police in support of Reclaim Your Food, whilst many more looked on in a mixture of horror and disbelief. Another passer-by was threatened with arrest for cycling on the pavement, a concerned mother also threatened with arrest in expressing distaste at Police conduct. 

In the short time that Reclaim Your Food have been operating in Brixton (every sunday, from 2/3pm onwards), they have enjoyed growing support and participation, with people from many different walks of life expressing positive sentiments about the project, out on the streets, where it counts. 

It is hoped that this project will not only continue, but grow in the face of repression by the state. In a society where property is sacred and profit divine, the Police have once again demonstrated whose side they are on. 

Solidarity is the best weapon we have. 

Reclaim Everything!
 
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2008/03/09/food-reclaimed/
 
Reclaim Your Food successfully distributed vegan food in Brixton Town square today despite two arrests the previous week for the same activity.
A minimal police presence was maintained photographing everybody present but spirits were kept high and there are definitely worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Between 50 and 60 folk were present at it's busiest, many of them local and many shocked at the police surveillance some of us have come to expect.
Immigrant Roundups to Gain Cheap Labor for US Corporate Giants


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/16/gmcrops.greenpolitics

GM crop trial locations may be hidden from public

Government plans clampdown on vandalism after lobbying from biotech firms

* Ian Sample, science correspondent
* The Guardian,
* Saturday February 16 2008

Genetically modified crops may be grown in hidden locations in Britain 
amid fears that anti-GM campaigners are winning the battle over the 
controversial technology, the Guardian has learned.

Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 
(Defra) confirmed they are looking at a range of options to clamp down 
on vandalism to GM crop trials, after intense lobbying by big crop 
biotech companies. The firms have warned that trials of GM crops are 
becoming too expensive to conduct in Britain because of the additional 
costs of protecting fields from activists.

This week, a report from the GM industry claimed that worldwide 
agricultural use of genetically modified crops had increased 70-fold in 
the last 10 years to 114m hectares in 2007.

But fears of vandalism have forced many companies to shift their crop 
trials abroad. Last year, only one trial went ahead in Britain, a 
blight-resistant GM potato developed by the German company BASF. Two 
activists were arrested for damage to the trial site, which was later 
almost completely destroyed in a night raid.

BASF plans to repeat the trial this year, at the National Institute of 
Agricultural Botany in Cambridgeshire. Another trial is planned by 
scientists at Leeds University.

A group representing the major biotech companies has asked the 
government to oversee specific changes to the GM trial process that 
would make fields of crops harder for activists to locate. Under 
existing laws, full details of every GM crop trial must be disclosed in 
advance on a government website, with a six-figure grid reference 
identifying the precise location of the field.

The group has asked Defra to keep details of locations on a register, 
which would only be shared with people who apply and who can prove they 
have good reason to know. Another option is to release only a 
four-figure reference for the trial site.

"These trials are legal, so why give carte blanche to anyone who wants 
to destroy them? In most countries, there is nothing like the sort of 
specific information that has to be given in Britain," said Julian 
Little of the industry group, the Agricultural Biotechnology Council. 
The need to give the location of a GM crop is contained in a European 
directive, but it is interpreted differently across member states.

The GM companies are also keen to see stiffer penalties for activists 
caught damaging crop trials.

"We have to sort out the framework under which we're allowed to do 
trials. If Britain is to benefit from GM technology, we have to have 
crop trials in Britain. There's no use second-guessing how a crop will 
fare here from what has been done elsewhere," Little said. "We have to 
start looking at how to produce a large amount of food on a small amount 
of land with a minimal environmental footprint and for that you need new 
technology."

Some GM companies fear future crop trials are in greater danger because 
of what they claim is a "broadening out" of anti-GM activists to include 
anti-globalisation and possibly animal rights campaigners. British 
anti-GM activists have also developed links with European groups that 
hold training camps to share tactics, such as crossing police lines and 
gaining access to fields. In France and Germany, crop trashings have 
increased substantially as farmers have taken to growing GM crops.

Defra officials said making it harder to identify trial sites was not a 
straightforward process.

Only one GM crop is approved for cultivation in Europe, an 
insect-resistant maize, which is grown on about 110,000 hectares in 
member states. It is not grown in Britain because the corn pest it 
protects against is not found in this country. A second crop, a potato, 
is in the final stages of approval in Brussels, but it would only be 
used to produce starch for the paper industry and would probably be 
grown in Germany and the Czech Republic.
 
---------------------------------------------------------

Fwd from ELP:
 
If a sab had pleaded guilty to what this scum did then we'd of been looking at another prisoner. British 'justice' is a joke.

Fox huntsman smashed saboteur's car windowPublished on 21/02/2008 Huntsman Michael Nicholson, of Coniston Foxhounds, pleaded guilty to criminal damage after attacking a saboteur's car A HUNTSMAN smashed the window of a hunt saboteur's car. Michael Gerald Nicholson, who works for Coniston Foxhounds, smashed the window of a Ford Escort with three saboteurs inside. Nicholson, 40, pleaded guilty to criminal damage when he appeared before South Lakeland Magistrates' Court on Tuesday. Prosecuting, Mr David Dunk told the court that a group of anti-hunt activists met in Grasmere on the morning of January 10 to monitor Coniston Foxhounds. They told police that they were aiming to film illegal activity if they saw it taking place and then call the police. The planned hunt meeting was cancelled due to bad weather and the saboteurs headed to Ambleside in an attempt to find Coniston Foxhounds' kennels. They were spotted on Nook Lane, near to the kennels, by Nicholson and he recognised them from Grasmere earlier in the morning. Mr Dunk said: "Mr Nicholson walked towards the car and according to the driver, Mr Cain, he was shouting. "He banged with the umbrella on the windscreen then turned his attention to the driver's side window. He hit it a number of times, causing it to smash." The driver, Dean Cain, suffered a minor cut to his face. After the incident was reported to the police, Nicholson was arrested and interviewed. He admitted to being the man involved in the incident. Defending, Mr Gareth James told the court that Nicholson is a man of good character with no previous convictions. He said: "Mr Nicholson is responsible for the well-being of the animals and he became suspicious of the men as Nook Lane is a dead end. Mr Cain said he was driving back down the lane but Mr Nicholson said the car was parked up and two people were looking over the wall. They told him they were lost. "He said: 'You aren't lost, I saw you at Grasmere earlier, I'm calling the police'. "They drove the car towards Mr Nicholson, it's a narrow lane, and he stood in front of the car. "He made contact with the umbrella on the car, the car drove towards him in an aggressive manner. "He was struck on the leg, his jeans where ripped open. He has since been to the doctor for medical treatment. "He swung the umbrella in one single blow in the centre of the driver's side window and that shattered it. He accepts that he acted recklessly. He realised that it is unacceptable but he was concerned for the safety of his animals and the hunt's premises." Nicholson, of Nook Lane, Ambleside, was given a 12-month conditional discharge, and ordered to pay £150 in compensation to Mr Cain, plus costs of £58. Presiding magistrate Mrs Margaret Stamper said: "We feel that because of your good character we can make a conditional discharge of 12 months for criminal damage." http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=795328
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/7336740.stm
 
Police 'terror' swoop on BBC man 
A BBC radio reporter was held to the ground and searched by police under the Terrorism Act after his transmitter equipment was mistaken for a bomb. 
Five officers forced BBC Radio Stoke's Max Khan to his knees and held him face down in Stoke-on-Trent on Monday. 
He was wearing a backpack with protruding wires and aerials. Staffordshire Police have apologised. 
Earlier this year armed police tackled a man in the city after fearing his MP3 player was a gun. 
Mr Khan said he was targeted after police were told an "Arabic-looking man was acting suspiciously" outside the Potteries Shopping Centre in Hanley. 
He was on his way back from a story about the recently-moved Post Office and carrying a backpack containing equipment that is regularly used to allow reporters to broadcast from locations around the city centre. 
He said the officers came at him from several directions at about 1100 BST and shouted for him to "get down on the floor". 
He said his initial reaction was "embarrassment and the humiliation of being treated that way, when you've done nothing wrong". 
He added: "I think it then moved on to fear of what could have happened and a bit of anger as well. 
"You get the apologies at the scene from officers, but you still feel that maybe there could have been better intelligence or something. 
"It seems somewhat basic to be treated in that way just because of the colour of your skin." 
The officers handed him a stop-search notice. 
'Necessary action' 
Ch Supt Jane Sawyers said a report had been received of a "suspicious" man with "a large backpack" with "wires or aerials" protruding from it. 
She said: "Our first duty in cases like this is the safety of the public, the person and our officers, and presented with this limited information local officers immediately responded and positively acted to ensure everyone's safety. 
"I want to apologise to the man involved in the incident for any distress caused but the action taken was necessary. 
"I am pleased with the positive and professional way the officers dealt with the incident." 
A BBC spokesperson said: "Police have apologised for this incident and as far as the BBC is concerned the matter is now closed." 
In January mechanic Darren Nixon was on a bus when he was tailed by three police cars after a member of the public mistook his MP3 player for a gun. 
He was then confronted by armed officers in the street yards from his home in Stoke-on-Trent. 
He was arrested but no weapon was found.  
 
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1311868,00.html
 
UK To Challenge Snoop Dogg's Entrance
Updated:13:12, Saturday April 05, 2008 
The Government is challenging a decision to allow Californian rapper Snoop Dogg into the country.
The star, 36, was banned from entering Britain in March last year following his involvement in a brawl with police at Heathrow Airport.
 
More than 65,000 fans had expected to see him perform in the Heavyweights Of Hip-Hop tour, alongside hip-hop mogul P Diddy, but it had to be cancelled.
In January the rapper - real name Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr - successfully appealed against the ruling and was given entry clearance by an asylum immigration tribunal.
But the UK Border Agency is challenging the ruling on Monday.
A spokesman said: "We were disappointed with the judge's decision in this case and have challenged his decision.
"This hearing is due to take place on the 7th of April. It would not be appropriate to comment further while these proceedings are ongoing."
A ruling on the case is not expected on Monday.
In 2007, the US rapper was refused entry into Australia because of his extensive criminal record.
Last year he was sentenced to five years' probation and 800 hours of community service in the US after he pleaded no contest to gun and drug charges.
He was also convicted in 1990 of cocaine possession and charged with gun possession after a 1993 traffic stop
 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/we-shall-not-overcome-nuclear-protest-survived-six-tory-governments-but-not-new-labour-793123.html
 
We shall (not) overcome... Nuclear protest survived six Tory governments. But not New Labour
Fifty years after historic march, protest camp at atomic weapons base is outlawed in a new blow to civil liberties
By Kim Sengupta
Saturday, 8 March 2008 
It survived six Tory governments, the end of the Cold War and the rise and fall of mass marches against the British nuclear deterrent. But after 50 years in which the tradition of peaceful demonstration has been maintained outside the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, the New Labour era has finally done for one of the most famous symbols of protest in British political history. 
Today would have seen the latest gathering of the band of women who have assembled on the second Saturday of each month since the 1980s to object to the continuing development of the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent. Instead, following a High Court ruling this week, the protest tents are being removed, demonstrators are being threatened with arrest and "no camping" signs are being erected.
>From being a symbol of the right to protest, Aldermaston has become the latest testament to the desire of successive New Labour governments to curtail the right to assemble, demonstrate and object to government policy.
Evidence from the Ministry of Defence to the High Court cited "operational and security concerns". In their High Court appeal, legal representatives for the Aldermaston women argued that the by-law which ostensibly took effect last May banning "camping in tents, caravans, trees or otherwise" amounted to an unlawful interference with freedom of expression and the right of assembly guaranteed by articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. David Plevsky, appearing for the Aldermaston Women's Peace Camp, said the new regulations were "criminalising the peaceful, traditional and regular activities of the AWPC".
It cut no ice. Before the ruling, Sian Jones a member of the peace camp, said: "If we don't win this review our very existence will be under threat. But there are also wider implications for the long-held right to protest, which is such an important part of British society. Aldermaston has been known as a place of protest for the last 50 years, and this year is the 50th anniversary of the first CND march there." That battle has now been lost. 
As a result of the heavy-handed prohibition of a long-running series of protests which have never resulted in violence, a march this Easter to Aldermaston - intended to commemorate the pioneering protest of 1958 - has now taken on a wholly contemporary significance. After a series of assaults on the right to protest around Westminster and beyond, the 2008 trek through Berkshire is set to become the latest chapter in the fight to wrest back civil liberties that New Labour appears determined to take away.
The CND is planning a 50th anniversary day of action on Easter Monday, when the atomic weapons establishment is to be surrounded by a "human chain" to highlight what it says is the stifling of legitimate protest. The police have warned that anyone causing an obstruction during that protest is likely to be arrested and prosecuted. 
Kate Hudson, the chairperson of CND said: "We feel this is an extremely serious matter where the long-established and hard-won right to protest is now under attack. People are extremely worried about the weapons of mass destruction being produced at Aldermaston and it is unrealistic of the Government to think that they will not take part in expressing their views. "We hope that on Easter Monday people will not only come because it is the 50th anniversary of the first march but also to show the need to defend their civil liberties."
One campaigner planning to take part, 57-year-old Margaret Jefferson, from west London, said: "I think it is essential that people make a stand on this issue. I had stayed at that peace camp as have so many others without posing any threat to anyone. What is this Government afraid of, what do they think we will do?
"We live in a very dangerous world as it is and with the end of the Cold War there is even less justification for nuclear weapons. As long as these weapons are here there is the risk that a version of them will come into the hands of terrorists."
One of the most famous figures to participate in 1958 is too frail to be there on Easter Monday. But there is no questioning his ongoing commitment to the protest and outrage at the modern Labour Party's complicity in its suppression.
Michael Foot, the former Labour leader, who marched with his late wife, the actress and author Jill Craigie, said last night that he was "deeply saddened" to hear of the camp being closed down, and especially dismayed that this should happen under a Labour government. 
"We thought the cause was right and just and we were glad to take part in these marches," Mr Foot said. "I think it is wretched that they are now thinking of shutting down the camp after it had been goingsuccessfully for more than 20 years and I am sure Jill would have felt the same way as well.
"The governments at the time sometimes behaved very badly towards these protesters who were simply exercising their rights in a peaceful way. But these were Tory governments, the Labour Party supported them as I recall, I was the leader at the time. But times seem to have changed." 

http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/blackpoolnews/Eccentric-39Womble39-breaks-Asbo-.3890670.jp

Eccentric 'Womble' breaks Asbo 
 
By Paul Fielding
A PENSIONER known as a human Womble because of his love of collecting litter has found himself in trouble with the law again for interfering with rubbish.
Dennis Bostock starred in television programmes such as Neighbours from Hell and A Life of Grime, after filling his previous home in Blackpool with rubbish.

Yesterday, he pleaded guilty to breaching an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (Asbo) which bans him from touching waste.

He was sentenced by Blackpool magistrates to remain in the court precincts until the end of the day's court hearings.

The 71-year-old, previously of Pleasant Street, Blackpool, now of no fixed address, was appearing on his sixth breach of the Asbo.

On December 12 last year Bostock was placed on a three-year Asbo which prohibited him from interfering with or removing any items from waste receptacles including bins, skips or sacks in Blackpool.

Problem

On Saturday he appeared at court and admitted his fifth breach of the Asbo. He was sentenced to remain in the court
precincts until 11.15am. 

Fifteen minutes later he was seen by police tipping out items from a waste bin in Bank Hey Street.

Peter Bardsley, prosecuting, said: "When arrested Bostock said, 'I have a reasonable excuse, they would not given me my glasses back'."

Allan Cobain, defending, said: "He is a social problem, not a criminal one. 

"I don't think it is proportionate to send a 71-year-old pensioner to jail for tipping out some litter."

Mr Cobain added that Bostock was eccentric and wilful at times. 

He tipped out the rubbish because he was annoyed and frustrated he had not got his spectacles back from the police.

The defence said that after getting out of prison recently Bostock returned to his previous accommodation to find the locks had been changed.

His suitcase containing his belongings and his bank book were still in the accommodation and he had no money.

The full article contains 324 words and appears in Blackpool Gazette newspaper.
Last Updated: 19 March 2008 8:03 AM
 
http://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.2132676.0.asbo_breach_teen_jailed.php
 
Asbo breach teen jailed
By Daniel Knowles
Comment | Read Comments (2)
An Epsom teen has been jailed for two months after breaching his antisocial behaviour order.
Brett Carslake, of Wey Court, appeared at North Surrey Magistrates' Court on Friday after being spotted on March 4 talking to one of four men the order banned him from associating with in public.
Carslake was seen with one of the men at the corner of Chessington and Longmead roads in Epsom about 1pm but escaped on his bicycle before police could arrest him.
He was arrested nine days later.
PCSO Jamie Clarke said: "Carslake has been sentenced to two months in prison for breaching his Asbo which demonstrates how seriously these orders are treated."
Carslake's two-year Asbo expires on June 26 next year.
The order bans him from causing alarm, harassment, abuse or distress in any form to any person in Surrey, being intoxicated or carrying open liquor in a public, entering Epsom town centre, Mounthill Gardens, Rosebery Park or being in public with four men named in the Asbo.

http://www.burnleycitizen.co.uk/mostpopular.var.2114221.mostviewed.fiveyear_asbo_for_woman_in_tent.php
 
Five-year ASBO for woman in tent
By Kate Turner
A "NEIGHBOUR from hell" who had lived in a tent outside her home after a blaze has been given a five-year anti social beh-aviour order.
Marilyn Holt, 57, who also uses her maiden name Birchenough, was handed the order by Reedley magistrates after an application was made by Burnley Council's Anti Social Behaviour unit to try and protect her fed-up neighbours.
The decision was made after Holt, of Partridge Hill Street, Padiham, failed to improve her behaviour, despite the council attempting to help her tackle her problem with alcohol.
In January Holt, who has bi-polar disorder, was jailed for 60 days after she admitted breaching an interim ASBO.
She was arrested after urinating in the street and stealing ice cream from Padiham Co-op.
Holt also has a number of other convictions for being drunk and disorderly.
The new order means that she must not drink or be under the influence of alcohol in public, behave in a manner that causes harassment, alarm or distress to others and urinate in public or expose herself.
Holt and her husband Victor hit the headlines last year when living in a tent in their garden
Posted by: Ruth, Burnley on 1:18pm Thu 13 Mar 08
You can't make a court order against mental illness. What exactly is this supposed to do to improve the situation? Ask anyone around Partridge Hill Street and they'll tell you Marilyn needs to be in hospital, not threatened with prison.
You can't make a court order against mental illness.
What exactly is this supposed to do to improve the situation?
Ask anyone around Partridge Hill Street and they'll tell you Marilyn needs to be in hospital, not threatened with prison.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/19/housing.communities
 
Legal pursuit of homeless people beggars belief
          
Adam Sampson 
The Guardian, 
Wednesday March 19 2008
this article
Close 
This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday March 19 2008 on p6 of the Society news & features section. It was last updated at 00:07 on March 19 2008. 
 
A woman walks past a homeless man. Photograph: Peter Parks/AFP
The case over which recorder Ian Lawrie was presiding at Oxford crown court last month was not, on the face of it, challenging. A homeless man, charged with a second breach of an asbo for begging, appeared to have little in the way of a defence: a police video showed him sitting with his dog in the doorway of WH Smith, receiving money and slices of pizza from passers-by.
Lawrie does not look much like Judge John Deed, yet within 20 minutes he had dismissed the case and raised serious concerns about the use of the criminal courts to enforce such measures. He challenged Oxford city council's insistence on pursuing beggars through the courts as part of its "zero tolerance" policy. "The authorities have got their approach totally out of perspective," he told the court, adding that the decision to prosecute was "wholly disproportionate and a waste of taxpayers' money".
Lawrie is not a lone voice. There is growing concern in judicial circles about the spread of asbos in such cases. Criminal judges worry that orders are usually imposed in civil courts, where the standard of proof is lower (just 3% of applications are refused), but breaches are dealt with in the criminal courts - and 44% of asbos are breached. 
It is the penalties that cause most concern. The maximum jail sentence for breaching an asbo is five years, and the guidelines encourage judges to consider custody, even where the original transgression would not be an imprisonable offence. At a recent training conference on sentencing, eight judges were invited to consider a case where a drunk man had repeatedly breached an asbo banning him from a hospital A&E department. None of them thought the case worthy of imprisonment. In fact, the court of appeal had upheld a four-year sentence.
Lawrie clearly understood that there are serious doubts about whether begging is illegal in the way being suggested - breaching an order not to cause "harassment, alarm and distress". There was no evidence that the defendant was doing anything other than sitting in the doorway, accepting what was offered by passers-by - that he was, in Lawrie's words, a "passive recipient of alms". Criminalising passive begging, he suggested, was "utterly Victorian. We will be building poorhouses next."
He was wrong only in one respect: the Vagrancy Act is pre-Victorian, passed in 1824 to deal with social problems caused by the influx of soldiers returning from the Napoleonic wars. But its use is not an accidental hangover from the past. When the majority of the act was repealed in 1989, the elements criminalising begging (and rough sleeping) were retained, and now form part of the Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005. Anti-begging measures are part of our fight against serious and organised crime, it appears.
The acts of the early 19th century failed to spell out exactly what they were banning - which, as Lawrie identified, means that behaviour only over-officious council functionaries would find objectionable is confused with actions that genuinely require policing. If we cannot give food to the hungry or money to the needy without criminalising them, something is severely awry.
In a country where the authorities are only too ready to use aged statutes to bar behaviour they disapprove of, the vagrancy act is a handy tool. Three years ago, a student in Lancaster handing out anti-vivisection leaflets had his stall confiscated because the act bars "the exposure of wounds and deformities to obtain or gather alms". Last year, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, said that he had attended a Stop the War rally in a deliberate attempt to get arrested under the act. Let us hope that if such prosecutions happen, Lawrie is on the bench.
· Adam Sampson is chief executive of Shelter.
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7315415.stm
 
Heathrow fingerprint plan on hold 

The Queen visited Heathrow's new Terminal 5 earlier this month
Plans to fingerprint passengers travelling from Heathrow's new Terminal 5 have been suspended, less than 24 hours before it is due to open. 
Airport operator BAA claims the measure is needed to distinguish domestic passengers from international ones. 
But the data protection watchdog said the plan may breach British law. 
The BBC's Tom Symonds said talks were now under way between the Information Commissioner and BAA, which insists it wants to bring in checks in the future. 
Data encrypted 
Under the plans, prints would be checked at the gate to try to ensure the person who checked in was the same person who boarded the aircraft. 
The move would allow domestic and international passengers to mingle in the terminal's departure lounge. 
The idea behind the fingerprinting is to make it impossible for a terrorist to arrive at Heathrow on a transit flight, then exchange boarding passes with a colleague in the departure lounge and join a domestic flight to enter the UK without being checked by immigration authorities. 
But the Information Commissioner's Office has warned such checks may be in breach of the Data Protection Act and asked why photographs could not be taken instead, as is standard practice at other airports. 
BAA said the data was encrypted straight away and destroyed within 24 hours, in line with the act. 
The Queen officially opened Terminal 5, which was subject to the UK's longest planning inquiry lasting four years, earlier this month.

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/12/388426.html
 
Foie Gras Protest Silenced For Using Megaphone 
Notts Indymedia Features | 24.12.2007 00:43 | Animal Liberation | Repression | Nottinghamshire 
Animal rights activists in Nottingham campaigning against the sale of Foie Gras in the city have found themselves the targets of police repression. On the evening of Friday December 14, campaigners were told that they could not use a megaphone, with the police citing Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 as their basis for this prohibition.
The heavy-handed police response is indicative of a national trend towards increasingly repressive policing of animal rights protests and a a more general limitation on the right to protest
Once again on Friday (14/12/07), Nottingham Animal Rights were protesting against the cruelty of Foie Gras outside the last few restaurants in Nottingham that persist in serving it. The production of this unhealthy pate made of diseased goose or duck liver, is so barbaric (involving force feeding a factory farmed bird until their liver swells to ten times its natural size) that it has been banned in the UK and most of mainland Europe, however sale of imports is still legal.
Once again the police having only consulted with the restaurant and not spoken to the activists to obtain a more balanced perspective, attempted to suppress the protest, this time by using section 14 of the public order act 1986. Various assembly conditions were imposed by several officers on the scene including a ban on the use of megaphones, and eventually the protesters were told they could only continue their protest from a distance (a little further down and on the opposite side of the road) where they could not talk to customers of the restaurant in question.
The following day (15/12/07) saw further actions as part of a national day of action against Foie Gras.
In Nottingham now only Merchants (part of the Lace Market hotel), French Living and Alea (a casino), have this unpopular item on the menu.
Section 14 Explained
Under Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986, the police have powers to impose conditions as to the time, place and duration of a public assembly involving two persons or more. Until 2003, this power could only be used where the protest involved 20 persons or more but following intensive lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry and the police this figure was reduced to just two. In order to justify the imposition of conditions, the police need to have reasonable suspicion that the assembly is likely to cause serious disruption to the community, serious criminal damage, serious public disorder or that the purpose of the protest is intimidation with a view to the coercion of others.
Before the Public Order Act 1986 came in to force the Home Office published a white paper entitled "Review of Public Order Law" which set out the rationale for the proposed changes to the law. In relation to the new powers governing assemblies it stated that the new powers to regulate assemblies would be unlikely to be exercised frequently (and this was then in relation to assemblies of 20 persons or more). Regarding the 'coercion' condition above, it stated that this could be used where pickets deliberately obstruct the passage of those going to work or where demonstrators used other means forcefully to obstruct the free movement of people or vehicles.
The white paper also stated that conditions should not be imposed, which effectively amounted to a ban of the assembly. In practice the police nowadays are routinely abusing Section 14 on animal rights protests, even where the protest is entirely peaceful. Conditions are being imposed for example on protests consisting solely of a small number people displaying a banner, addressing the public by megaphone and handing out leaflets to passers by. Certain police forces, notably Hertfordshire and Cambridgshire police, are imposing conditions which do effectively amount to a ban. For example, on a recent SHAC demo Hertfordshire police stated that under Section 14 the assembly had to take place on a section of road which was obscured by a hedge, effectively preventing the protestors from communicating with the public. On the same day in Cambridgeshire, officers imposed conditions stating that the protests could only take place for 15 or 30 minutes, which again effectively amounted to a ban. Clearly in both situations the police were acting in a manner very different to that which the original legislators ostensibly intended. Firstly the officers could not reasonably have suspected that the purpose of the protest was to coerce others (ie forcefully to prevent people from going about their lawful business) or that the protest might result in serious disruption etc. Secondly, the conditions imposed prevented the protestors from expressing their views to the public, and thus effectively amounted to a ban on the protest. Similarly, the police have also used Section 14 to restrict the use of megaphones and displays of banners. In 2006 for instance, an animal rights activist was found guilty of breaching a Section 14 order for using a loudhailer during a protest outside a GlaxoSmithKline site in Ware. Although he argued that the Section 14 directions were invalid, the site's proximity to a gymnasium and two schools, including one holding exams at the time meant the direction imposed were lawful.

https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2008/01/389353.html
 
Activist arrested while trying to give tree protester water 
Jon | 13.01.2008 16:51 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Free Spaces | Oxford 
An activist is arrested for "on suspicion of littering" while trying to throw Gabriel, the Bonn Square tree protester, some water. 
 
At about 2 AM on Sunday morning two activists went to Bonn Square to try to give the fenced-off tree protester, Gabriel, some water. As one distracted the security, the other tried to throw a bottle to Gabriel, but unfortunately it wasn't a very good throw ;) 

Police sitting in a nearby car quickly noticed and the bottle-thrower was arrested "on suspicion of littering". Fortunately only about 3 hours was spent at the police station before the activist was released without charge - the police seemed to have changed their mind and decided it wasn't a prosecutable offence. 

The arrestee was advised by a solicitor that whilst the arrest was potentially unlawful, pursuing legal action would likely only result in a different charge such as "public disorder". An IPCC complaint may be made. 
 
videos show police arrest policy 
21.01.2008 00:02
Police were caught on camera threatening to arrest anyone throwing food or water to Gabriel: 
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/oxford/2008/01/389831.html 

This was not a case of one or two cops being petty; it was part of a concious policy of depriving Gabriel of food and water as a way of cutting short the protest and avoiding the expense of a full-scale eviction. 
 
http://www.irr.org.uk/2008/april/ha000010.html
 
Death in Pentonville prison
By Harmit Athwal
3 April 2008, 4:00pm
IRR News has learnt that, on 30 March 2008, a man detained under immigration powers was found hanged at Pentonville prison.
Alfredo Castano-Fuentes, 24, was found hanged in his cell during a routine cell inspection. Attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead. Alfredo had served a one-year sentence for possessing a false passport and was being held under immigration powers at the overcrowded Pentonville prison. According to Ministry of Justice population in custody tables, in February 2008, Pentonville prison had certified normal accommodation (CNA) for 799 people but was actually holding 1,138 people.[1]
A Prison Service spokesperson told IRR News: 'Alfredo Castano-Fuentes was found hanging in his cell at 5.15am on Sunday 30 March [and] was pronounced dead at 10.45am. Our sympathies are with Mr Castano-Fuentes's family. As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will conduct an investigation.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7323753.stm
 
Police demand terror agent's book 
By Richard Watson 
BBC Newsnight 

Counter terrorism police have won the right to force the author of a new book about terrorism to hand over his research. 
The book is about Hassan Butt, a British citizen who admits that he acted as a recruiting agent for al-Qaeda and raised tens of thousands of pounds for terror networks. 
He says he left his network after the London bombings in 2005 and is now is turning extremists away from terrorism. 
Hassan Butt's co-author, an independent journalist, has been ordered to deliver draft manuscripts and notes for the book to the Greater Manchester Police. 
By his own admission, Hassan Butt has been a terrorist supporter.   
 
------------------------------------------------------------------

ASYLUM SEEKERS SENT BACK TO IRAQ

The British government is forcibly returning asylum seekers   
to Iraq, despite it being one of the most unsafe countries   
in the world. There are 1400 Iraqis in Britain, who have   
flown from a country devastated by US and British war 
policies. Now a leaked government report proposes starving   
the asylum seekers back to Iraq if they do not agree to go   
voluntarily, by making them homeless and refusing all state   
support. (See http://tinyurl.com/2s2syq)

55 Iraqis were forcibly deported in handcuffs last week   
against the advice of the United Nations, which says that   
Iraq cannot be considered a safe place. Human rights   
organisations are appalled that the British government    
refuses to monitor what happens to the returned asylum 
seekers, even though it knows that one a refugee it returned   
before Christmas was killed soon afterward by a car bomb.

As well as capitulating to the hysterical campaign against   
asylum seekers in the tabloid press, the British government   
is sacrificing the lives of Iraqi refuges by forcibly            
returning them in an effort to create an illusion of   
progress and improved stability in Iraq, when in reality the   
opposite is true.

For more information and details of the campaign to defend   
Iraqi and Kurdish asylum seekers, email Dashty Jamal,  
International Federation of Iraqi Refugees :   
d.jamal at ntlworld.com

---------------------------------------------------------

UK Government proposes legislation to make BAE-Saudi corruption judicial
review impossible in future

The Corner House and Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) are still awaiting
judgment on their landmark judicial review, held on 14-15 February this
year in the High Court, of the decision by the Serious Fraud Office to
halt its BAE-Saudi Arabia corruption investigation.

But already the UK Government has introduced draft primary legislation to
Parliament that would in effect prevent such a judicial review in future.

The Government's draft Constitutional Renewal Bill, announced on 25 March
2008, would significantly increase and concentrate the powers that the
Executive (the Government) can exercise over the Judiciary (the Courts)
and Parliament.

The draft Bill proposes to create a new power for the Attorney General --
the Government's chief legal adviser appointed by the Prime Minister and a
member of the Government -- to stop a criminal investigation or
prosecution on the grounds of 'national security' without any meaningful
explanation or accountability to Parliament, the Courts or international
bodies.

Sensitive criminal prosecutions could therefore be halted -- or appear to
be halted -- for political reasons. 'National security' could simply be
invoked by a politician, the Attorney General, to stop any investigation
or prosecution perceived as undesirable.

The Corner House and CAAT have issued a joint press release:

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/PRConsRenBill.pdf

and circulated an analysis by our lawyers:

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/document/ConstRenBillOECD.pdf.

We are now calling upon the public and parliamentarians to voice their
concerns about this draft Constitutional Renewal Bill.

A Joint Committee comprising members of the House of Lords and the House
of Commons will 'consider and report' on the draft Constitutional Renewal
Bill by 17th July 2008.
 
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article3191517.ece
 
January 16, 2008
Al-Qaeda's 007
The extraordinary story of the solitary computer geek in a Shepherds Bush bedsit who became the world's most wanted cyber-jihadist

Gordon Corera 
About a dozen uniformed police in riot gear, and a handful of detectives, gathered outside the four-storey terraced house on a quiet street just off Shepherds Bush roundabout in West London. 
After a tip-off from overseas colleagues, they knew that inside was a man in contact with a group planning a bombing in Central Europe. His name was Younes Tsouli, but the detectives knew little more about him. 
As they tried to shove their way in, the young man in the top-floor flat forced his door shut. It didn't hold for long. Once the police flooded in, there was a struggle. A mirror smashed and one officer emerged bloodied from a shard of glass. Tsouli was overpowered. "He was thoroughly detained," one detective recalls. At first, officers were not sure that they had the right person: the long-haired young man in jogging shorts bore little resemblance to the short-haired man in the photo they had been given. But when he confirmed his name, they knew they had their man. Two detectives led him away. 
Amid the mess typical of any 22-year-old's room, detectives found a laptop on a desk, still switched on and with programmes running. When specialist forensic science officers arrived, they found that Tsouli had been creating a website called YOUBOMBIT. A banner with the title and flames was across the bottom of the screen. Also on his screen was a search box with the word "bomb" as the search term. Tsouli was logged in under the username IRH007. The detectives didn't know it - and wouldn't realise for some weeks - but they had caught one of the most notorious, most wanted cyber-jihadists in the world: a man whose case illustrated perfectly how terrorists are using the internet not just to spread propaganda, but to organise attacks. 
Younes Tsouli arrived in London in 2001 with his father, a diplomat from Morocco. He studied IT at a small college in Central London. With few friends, he soon immersed himself in the world of the internet. Online images of the war in Iraq radicalised him. In his mind it was evidence of a war against Muslims. Soon he was in the darker areas of the net, and graduated from viewing images to publishing them. He used variations of the username Irhabi 007 - irhabi meaning terrorist in Arabic, and 007 being a reference to Britain's most famous fictional spy. 
>From 2003 he joined web forums and built a reputation for publishing material such as manuals on hacking. By 2004 he was posting extremist videos and propaganda. That was when he came to the attention of al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq, who spotted his potential. They were making videos but struggling to get them to a wider audience because of the size of the files and the difficulty of finding websites that could host them. 
Tsouli solved this problem, making him invaluable. He was e-mailed links that allowed him to download videos from a server. He converted the material into various formats, including one that allowed the videos to be watched on mobile phones. The videos were then uploaded to web pages so that a wider audience could see them. This was often done by hacking into and "hijacking" websites, whose creators didn't realise that they were hosting terrorist propaganda. Tsouli even managed to post videos of Osama bin Laden on an official website of the state of Arkansas. The videos he uploaded included some showing the kidnapping and murder of hostages in Iraq, such as Nick Berg. 
Evan Kohlmann, an expert on cyber-terrorism who gave evidence at Tsouli's trial, explains: "007 came at this with a Western perspective. He had a flair for marketing, and he had the technical knowledge and skills to be able to place this stuff in areas on the net where it wouldn't be easily erased, where lots of people could download it, view it and save it." 
Tsouli's work was certainly appreciated. 
Representatives of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq until his death in 2006, issued messages of support for Irhabi 007. "May Allah protect you," one read. 
In August 2005 Tsouli became administrator of al-Ansar, a password-protected web forum where extremists communicated with each other. The forum's 4,500 users networked and shared practical information: some of the links were to instructions on making explosives. Among the discussions were details of how to get to Iraq to be a suicide bomber. Tsouli's message boards created contacts that would otherwise have been impossible. Kohlman says: "007 was working essentially as a matchmaker, setting up would-be suicide bombers with al-Qaeda in Iraq." One message read: "I'm ready to run off but I'm under 18. Am I too young?" The chilling reply was: "They have no objection to age." 
Tsouli's skills began to attract more than just al-Qaeda: a group of cyber-trackers - private individuals who monitor extremist websites - began to take notice of the new kid on the block. One of the trackers was Aaron Weisburd, who operates from a secret location in the US. He spotted Tsouli on a forum called Islamic Terrorists and, like others, he thought at first that anyone using the name Irhabi 007 had to be a joke. He says: "At first I started publishing bits and pieces of what he was doing online for comic relief, and really had no appreciation of where he was headed." Soon, however, Weisburd realised that whoever the mysterious cyber-jihadist was, he posed a real threat. Tsouli began carrying out intelligence work for al-Qaeda: for instance, looking for home movies from US soldiers serving in Iraq that would reveal what the inside of a base looked like, so future attacks could target weak spots. 
Weisburd began not just tracking Tsouli's work but communicating with him on the internet. "Because I knew he was monitoring me, I would post messages to him just to sort of tweak him," Weisburd explains. "I would give him a message like, 'Your days are numbered - you're going to get caught'. He, on the other hand, was participating in discussions about which part of my body they wanted when I was killed, and he said he wanted one of my fingers as a souvenir." 
Despite the threats, Weisburd kept going. And Tsouli began to get sloppy, failing to do enough to hide his IP address (the unique number that identifies a computer). This meant that Weisburd was able to triangulate Irhabi 007's rough position in 2004 - and, to his surprise, the nearest internet router to Tsouli was in Ealing in West London. Weisburd's information was passed to the authorities, but they still couldn't find the elusive cyber-jihadist, who was now being hunted by intelligence and law enforcement agencies from across the West. 
When London was bombed in July 2005, Tsouli wrote: "Brother, I am very happy. From the moment that the infidels cry, I laugh." He grew enamoured of his own reputation, and kept a cutting from the New York Post from September 2005 that read: "U.S. SHAKEN BY QAEDA 007". In a message dated June 5, 2005, he wrote: "I am still the terrorist 007, one of the most wanted terrorists on the internet. I have the Feds and the CIA, both would love to catch me, I have MI6 on my back." But as his ego and ambitions grew, so did his chances of getting caught. 
What makes Irhabi 007's case so chilling is the evolution from simply setting up websites to becoming involved in terrorism itself. Increasingly he pined to go to Iraq to fight, and increasingly he became involved with others who were planning attacks. Two men who chatted with Tsouli online travelled from Atlanta, Georgia, to Canada to meet a group of extremists whom they knew from Tsouli's forums, and then to Washington, where they took what are alleged to be reconnaissance videos of targets such as Capitol Hill. These videos were later found on Tsouli's computer. 
It was Tsouli's links to a planned attack that brought the police to his door in October 2005. In a deliberate echo of 9/11, a group calling itself al-Qaeda in Northern Europe posted a declaration on al-Ansar at 8.46am on September 11, 2005. One of the men behind the declaration was 18-year-old Mirsad Bektasevic, who called himself Maximus. After publishing the declaration he travelled from his home in Sweden to Bosnia. In a house in the suburbs of Sarajevo he and an accomplice filmed a chilling suicide video. Surrounded by weapons and explosives, including a suicide vest, they say that they are preparing for attacks against those who have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
What they didn't realise was that they were under surveillance. On October 19 the Bosnian police arrested them. Bektasevic's phone records showed that one of his last calls was to West London. The Metropolitan Police were informed and moved on the address in Shepherds Bush. They had no idea when they arrested him that Younes Tsouli was also Irhabi 007: they simply believed that he was linked to the men in Bosnia, and therefore potentially dangerous. 
After Tsouli's arrest, police spent five days searching the flat, tearing up the carpets in a search for evidence. Items such as computer thumb drives could be hidden anywhere. But it was only when they started to pick apart the files on Tsouli's computer that they realised what they had. There were some obvious signs, such as the Powerpoint-style presentation on how to build a car bomb. But as the team dug deeper, scouring through two million files, they realised that there was much, much more. Some of the files were encrypted, others in Arabic. One clue was that there was no pornography, which they usually find in abundance - except on the computers of terrorist suspects. 
A professor of computing built virtual computers for each of the investigators, so that they could work on the files independently. As officers started looking at the archived information from chat forums and the edited video files, the penny began to drop: Tsouli was a major player. There could have been more, but Tsouli had just reformatted one of his other computers, erasing much of the information and leaving only fragments for detectives to work on. But crucially, in the flat they found a piece of paper with a list of websites that Tsouli had set up using credit cards and different identities. He had kept it as a reminder, but it was to prove damning. 
In the end, the evidence was enough to force Tsouli and his codefendants to change their pleas to guilty halfway through their trial last summer. 
In December, Tsouli's sentence was increased from 10 to 16 years. His conviction was the first for incitement to commit an act of terrorism through the internet, and a sign of what terrorists are capable of. "What it did show us was the extent to which they could conduct operational planning on the internet," Peter Clarke, the head of the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command, told me. "It was the first virtual conspiracy to murder that we had seen." 
The power of the internet is its ability to put like-minded people in touch from every corner of the world. But the benefits for terrorists can also be an advantage for detectives when they catch a suspect, because they can quickly trace the people with whom the suspect was in contact. 
"Once you get on to one guy who's important in a network, because the structure of a network is flat . . . you get everyone he's connected to," Aaron Weisburd explains. "In the old days a terrorist organisation would have a much more hierarchical structure, you would have tight little cells and one guy would know maybe one person one step up and maybe one person one step down, but that's it. In a network structure, if you get the right guy the whole thing goes down." 
That's exactly what happened with Tsouli. His arrest has been linked to a series of others around the world, including the arrest of 17 men in Canada in June 2006 and the two Americans who travelled to Washington. There have also been arrests and convictions here in the UK of individuals who visited Tsouli's web forums. 
Others have tried to take Irhabi 007's place, even paying homage to him and using similar names. But no one has been able to fill his shoes and al-Qaeda has been forced to use teams of people to replicate what that one young man did from his bedroom in Shepherds Bush. No one has matched his influence on the web: they have learnt to keep a lower profile than the celebrity-conscious Tsouli. "Keep in mind, those were some pretty big shoes and his name is still being talked about on the internet now like he's a god," Evan Kohlmann says. 
The cat-and-mouse game continues: one in which the teenage and twentysomething supporters of al-Qaeda often have the upper hand over law enforcement and intelligence officers, who often come from a different, less computer-savvy generation. But for other wannabe internet terrorists, the cyber-trackers are still out there. As Aaron Weisburd puts it: "If you're a terrorist and you're dependent on the internet, I have bad news." 
 
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3333852.ece
 
Hi-tech 'satellite' tagging planned in order to create more space in jails Civil rights groups and probation officers furious at 'degrading' scheme
 
Ministers are planning to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders as part of an expansion of the electronic tagging scheme that would create more space in British jails.

Amid concerns about the security of existing tagging systems and prison overcrowding, the Ministry of Justice is investigating the use of satellite and radio-wave technology to monitor criminals.

But, instead of being contained in bracelets worn around the ankle, the tiny chips would be surgically inserted under the skin of offenders in the community, to help enforce home curfews. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, as long as two grains of rice, are able to carry scanable personal information about individuals, including their identities, address and offending record.

The tags, labelled "spychips" by privacy campaigners, are already used around the world to keep track of dogs, cats, cattle and airport luggage, but there is no record of the technology being used to monitor offenders in the community. The chips are also being considered as a method of helping to keep order within prisons.

A senior Ministry of Justice official last night confirmed that the department hoped to go even further, by extending the geographical range of the internal chips through a link-up with satellite-tracking similar to the system used to trace stolen vehicles. "All the options are on the table, and this is one we would like to pursue," the source added.

The move is in line with a proposal from Ken Jones, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), that electronic chips should be surgically implanted into convicted paedophiles and sex offenders in order to track them more easily. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is seen as the favoured method of monitoring such offenders to prevent them going near "forbidden" zones such as primary schools.

"We have wanted to take advantage of this technology for several years, because it seems a sensible solution to the problems we are facing in this area," a senior minister said last night. "We have looked at it and gone back to it and worried about the practicalities and the ethics, but when you look at the challenges facing the criminal justice system, it's time has come."

The Government has been forced to review sentencing policy amid serious overcrowding in the nation's jails, after the prison population soared from 60,000 in 1997 to 80,000 today. The crisis meant the number of prisoners held in police cells rose 13-fold last year, with police stations housing offenders more than 60,000 times in 2007, up from 4,617 the previous year. The UK has the highest prison population per capita in western Europe, and the Government is planning for an extra 20,000 places at a cost of £3.8bn - including three gigantic new "superjails" - in the next six years.

More than 17,000 individuals, including criminals and suspects released on bail, are subject to electronic monitoring at any one time, under curfews requiring them to stay at home up to 12 hours a day. But official figures reveal that almost 2,000 offenders a year escape monitoring by tampering with ankle tags or tearing them off. Curfew breaches rose from 11,435 in 2005 to 43,843 in 2006 - up 283 per cent. The monitoring system, which relies on mobile-phone technology, can fail if the network crashes.

A multimillion-pound pilot of satellite monitoring of offenders was shelved last year after a report revealed many criminals simply ditched the ankle tag and separate portable tracking unit issued to them. The "prison without bars" project also failed to track offenders when they were in the shadow of tall buildings.

The Independent on Sunday has now established that ministers have been assessing the merits of cutting-edge technology that would make it virtually impossible for individuals to remove their electronic tags.

The tags, injected into the back of the arm with a hypodermic needle, consist of a toughened glass capsule holding a computer chip, a copper antenna and a "capacitor" that transmits data stored on the chip when prompted by an electromagnetic reader.

But details of the dramatic option for tightening controls over Britain's criminals provoked an angry response from probation officers and civil-rights groups. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "If the Home Office doesn't understand why implanting a chip in someone is worse than an ankle bracelet, they don't need a human-rights lawyer; they need a common-sense bypass.

"Degrading offenders in this way will do nothing for their rehabilitation and nothing for our safety, as some will inevitably find a way round this new technology."

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said the proposal would not make his members' lives easier and would degrade their clients. He added: "I have heard about this suggestion, but we feel the system works well enough as it is. Knowing where offenders like paedophiles are does not mean you know what they are doing.

"This is the sort of daft idea that comes up from the department every now and then, but tagging people in the same way we tag our pets cannot be the way ahead. Treating people like pieces of meat does not seem to represent an improvement in the system to me."

The US market leader VeriChip Corp, whose parent company has been selling radio tags for animals for more than a decade, has sold 7,000 RFID microchips worldwide, of which about 2,000 have been implanted in humans. The company claims its VeriChips are used in more than 5,000 installations, crossing healthcare, security, government and industrial markets, but they have also been used to verify VIP membership in nightclubs, automatically gaining the carrier entry - and deducting the price of their drinks from a pre-paid account.

The possible value of the technology to the UK's justice system was first highlighted 18 months ago, when Acpo's Mr Jones suggested the chips could be implanted into sex offenders. The implants would be tracked by satellite, enabling authorities to set up "zones", including schools, playgrounds and former victims' homes, from which individuals would be barred.

"If we are prepared to track cars, why don't we track people?" Mr Jones said. "You could put surgical chips into those of the most dangerous sex offenders who are willing to be controlled". The case for: 'We track cars, so why not people?'

The Government is struggling to keep track of thousands of offenders in the community and is troubled by an overcrowded prison system close to bursting. Internal tagging offers a solution that could impose curfews more effectively than at present, and extend the system by keeping sex offenders out of "forbidden areas". "If we are prepared to track cars, why don't we track people?" said Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers.
 
Officials argue that the internal tags enable the authorities to enforce thousands of court orders by ensuring offenders remain within their own walls during curfew hours - and allow the immediate verification of ID details when challenged.

The internal tags also have a use in maintaining order within prisons. In the United States, they are used to track the movement of gang members within jails.

Offenders themselves would prefer a tag they can forget about, instead of the bulky kit carried around on the ankle. The case against: 'The rest of us could be next'
 
Professionals in the criminal justice system maintain that the present system is 95 per cent effective. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is unproven. The technology is actually more invasive, and carries more information about the host. The devices have been dubbed "spychips" by critics who warn that they would transmit data about the movements of other people without their knowledge.

Consumer privacy expert Liz McIntyre said a colleague had already proved he could "clone" a chip. "He can bump into a chipped person and siphon the chip's unique signal in a matter of seconds," she said.

One company plans deeper implants that could vibrate, electroshock the implantee, broadcast a message, or serve as a microphone to transmit conversations. "Some folks might foolishly discount all of these downsides and futuristic nightmares since the tagging is proposed for criminals like rapists and murderers," Ms McIntyre said. "The rest of us could be next."
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