Terrorising Democracy
British police have used "emergency" terrorist legislation, which gives them draconian powers to stop and search demonstrators who were quite legally exercising their right to protest against an international arms fair being held in London.
The BBC reported:
Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said: "Our complaint is that Terrorism Act powers - very draconian emergency powers that were passed through Parliament with a view to being used in very extreme situations - appear to have been used possibly to quell protest."
This is the problem with repressive legislation. It's always aimed against "bad guys" and ends up being used against whoever is around. Blunkett thinks they should have used some different repressive legislation.
The excuse the police used was that it was near to the anniversary of September 11th. Presumably they were referring to the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York and not the fascist coup against a democratically elected government in Chile which happened on September 11th 1973.
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