I don't know if you read about the protestor convicted for the henious crime of reading out the names of dead soldiers in front of a Whitehall war memorial, I recieved this email from 'Our World Our Say', an organistaion based here in Brighton that is concerned with our democratic rights from local to global urging people to write to their MP raising their concerns. I think it is a very good moment to do so (you can do it online using www.writetothem.com) as it seems like a line has just been crossed and raise concerns of the serious errosion of our democratic rights.
'When I pass protestors every day at Downing Street, and believe me, you name it,
they protest against it, I may not like what they call me, but I thank God they can.
That's called freedom.'
Tony Blair, 7th April 2002
Dear Friend
Yesterday you may have read in the papers about Maya Anne Evans who received a
criminal conviction just for standing outside Downing Street and reading out the
names of the British soldiers killed in Iraq. Let your MP know how wrong this is by
emailing him or her at www.writetothem.com/.
We at Our World Our Say (OWOS), along with many others, think this is an outrage and
that we should all take action. MPs need to know that people will not let freedom of
expression and association be crushed in this way. A way used by the apartheid
regime in South Africa and the totalitarian government in East Germany before the
Berlin Wall came down.
If they won’t let Maya and other protesters read those names out why don’t we all
send our MPs a list of the soldiers and ask them what they’re going to do about it?
Let your MP know how wrong this is by emailing him or her at www.writetothem.com/.
Maya was found guilty of breaching Section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and
Police Act 2005. This section of the Act makes it virtually impossible to hold any
sort of protest within 1 kilometre of Parliament without police permission and
stringent conditions.
There is a simple action you can take to support Maya Anne Evans and to both protest
against the illegal and immoral war in Iraq and against this parliamentary act.
If the Government won’t let people read out the names of the soldiers killed then
perhaps we should all write to our MPs with a list of those names and a demand for
this draconian law to be withdrawn. You can do that at www.writetothem.com/
At the bottom of this email you will find the list of British soldiers that Maya was
arrested for reading out. You could copy this list into an email to your MP, which
you can send from www.writetothem.com/.
You could also ask your MP whether they will work to get Section 132 of the Serious
Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 repealed; what they are going to do about the
appalling security situation the invasion of Iraq has brought about; and when will
the UK’s troops be withdrawn from Iraq. It has been estimated that the illegal and
immoral war in Iraq has cost around 100,000 lives according to an analysis by The
Lancet.
For Maya and for everyone protesting to protect our freedom contact your MP now.
With best wishes
The Our World Our Say Team
PS: Get this message out to even more people by cutting and pasting the text and
sending it to friends and colleagues. Only send it to people you know as spam
damages our reputation.
You can read about Maya’s case at
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article331782.ece