[g8-sheffield] Draft statement denouncing suppression of right todemoinstrate

[Chris]

Hi

On Tue 24-May-2005 at 07:42:08PM +0100, John Smith wrote:
> 
> Nick: "to ban peaceful and orderly protests in our city
> centre"
> 
> I think the above quote should be reduced to " to ban
> protests in our city centre"
> 
> I agree with this, and to a proposal from Steve to
> change to replace "(with the decorative presence of
> Russia)" with "and Russia". 

Good amendments :-)

> The statement would now read:
> 
> G8 summit: Sheffield people denounce suppression of the
> right to protest.
> 
> On June 16-17, the interior ministers of the world's
> seven richest nations and Russia will gather in
> Sheffield to discuss how to step up the assault on human
> and democratic rights which their governments are
> conducting under the banner of the 'war against
> terrorism'. 
> 
> The right of Sheffield people to protest against the G8
> presence is being flagrantly denied by the police. They
> have informed us that no gatherings of protestors of any
> size will be permitted in the town centre. Any attempt
> to do so will be met with force and arrests.
> 
> Sheffield Against the G8 representatives proposed a
> route and a time for a demonstration which would have
> marched us away from the town centre before the arrival
> of the G8 ministers. Stop the War Coalition proposed a
> static picket near to the venue where they will be
> assembled. Both of these protests have been flatly
> prohibited. Under the pretext of ‘security’ the police
> are attempting to marginalise our protests by forcing us
> to the fringes of our city. 
> 
> We, the undersigned, believe that this attempt to ban
> protests in our city centre is an outrageous and
> unacceptable infringement of our democratic right to
> protest. We call on all citizens, organisations and
> elected representatives of Sheffield to unite behind the
> call for these repressive decisions to be reversed.

This is fine by me.

I wonder if it would make sense to also mention that the
police have incicated that the only place they will allow
protests is on Devonshire Green?  

Chris

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