BRIAN HAW ATTACKED BY POLICE

At a certain University today where this morning I borrrowed Bernard Crick's famous biography of George Orwell from the library.
I wonder what Orwell would have made of the appalling events this weekend as people protested against government plans to restrict protests in the vicinity of Parliament.
According to the Morning Star, the London demonstration began with an unauthorised rally in direct defiance of the law concerning Trafalgar Square.
Civil liberties protesters then decided to "go for a stroll" around Westminster, protesting at various Whitehall ministries, Parliament Square, MI5 headquarters and New Scotland Yard, before gathering at the gates of Downing Street.
Members of the police territorial support group then swiftly moved in to drag away around a dozen protesters who had lain down and linked arms in the road.
Peace protestor Haw was apparently filming the demonstration on his video camera when an officer bashed the camera, cutting his cheek.
He attempted to report the incident with the officer in charge but was instead seized, dragged into the roadway and manhandled into a police van, and arrested for being "likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress."
Haw alleges that, once inside the van, officers had forced his head down and punched him in the testicles. Later, he alleges, he was strip-searched and had his camera confiscated with no legal justification given.
"They have promised to return the camera, but I wouldn't be surprised if the evidence was erased," he says. Neither would I. It really does seem as if dissenting voices are being silenced one by one.What with the plans for micro-chipping offenders, ID cards, we are closer to Orwell's nightmare vision of an authoritarian 1984 than ever before.

A VICTORY FOR DEMOCRACY

Well done all those who stood firm: PA now reports the anti-war protesters are being allowed to march on Parliament this afternoon, calling for British troops to be withdrawn from Iraq.
Police had threatened to ban demonstrators from walking down Whitehall to Parliament.
But less than an hour before the march was due to start, organisers were apparently told it would be allowed to go ahead.

TOMORROW'S ANTI-WAR DEMO

I would just like to register my regret that I can't join the protest tomorrow in London organised by the Stop The War Coalition - people like Tony Benn and Walter Wolfgang are defying a police ban and marching on Whitehall and the House of Commons. I sincerely hope no-one gets hurt and that the police back off. It will be more incredibly bad news for Gordon Brown if he doesn't take note of the fact that people expect to be allowed to exercise their democratic right to protest. And will therefore do so........