💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › politics › SPUNK › sp000722.txt captured on 2022-03-01 at 16:34:54.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
England's Criminal Justice Bill: More criminals, less justice
By Mitzi Waltz
She had long blond hair and skin like Devonshire cream, all
fetchingly displayed beneath a sweeping black witches' cape and
traditional pointed hat. On stage at The Underworld in London as
part of a "politicized porn" road show called Smut Fest '94,
Daisy was making a speech against the Criminal Justice and Public
Order Bill a damn sight more mesmerizing than listening to some
political hack ramble on. "It's more criminals, less justice,"
she purred, "it's about fear and subversion - they're so
transparent." Her cape, hat and teeny weeny black-leather bikini
came off one by one as she compared the likely effect of the
Bill, which that evening was poised to become law, to the English
witch hunts of long ago. Down to a pair of tall boots and a
suspiciously phallic broom, Daisy shouted out "express yourself -
it's a birthright. Do what you will!" and, to rousing (and no
doubt aroused) applause, proceeded to express herself in several
ways that lived up to the Smut Fest name.
Stripping away rights. So what's this law that's got strippers
hitting the soapbox along with ravers, musicians, sound-system
operators, squatters, travellers, hunt saboteurs, eco-freaks and
a good portion of "average Brits"? The CJB was cooked up at the
Conservative ("Tory") Party's 1993 convention as the centerpiece
of a "crackdown on crime" campaign strategy. Like the American
Omnibus Crime Bill that it resembles, the actual law is an inch-
thick book that combines dozens of proposals into one easier-to-
sneak-through package. Here's just a few of its low points:
% Abolishes the right to silence at arrest. % Reinstitutes the
"sus laws," allowing cops to stop, search and arrest anyone based
on undefined suspicion. % Gives police broad new powers to
criminalize any assembly, rave, party or protest and arrest
participants or even those suspected of being on their way to
such an event. % Turns trespass from a civil matter into a
criminal offense, with obvious implications for squatters, hunt
sabs, protestors and strikers. % Allows for 24-hour evictions -
aimed at squatters, but as easily used on anyone who's gotten
behind on their rent. % Broadens anti-terrorism and anti-porn
laws to allow search and confiscation of any home or business
that a cop (not a court) suspects of such activities. BBS sysops
bewareI % Puts the burden of proof under its anti-terrorism
provisions on the arrested party, not the courts - you must prove
that seized items were not for use in banned activities. %
Criminalizes the nomadic "new age traveller" lifestyle via its
the trespass and assembly provisions, and by closing current
legal campsites. % Lets cops take "intimate samples" such as
blood, hair and semen, from anyone arrested, even if not
convicted of any crime, and add the info derived to a national
database.
That's only the ugliest half of it, but it's enough to scare the
bejeezus out of anyone in the UK who's ever tried to block a
bulldozer, walk a wildcat picket line or get muddy at one of the
infamous mega-raves that have been happening on countryside
summer nights near London for several years now.
Countering the crime scare. Opposition from the counterculture,
which has its own media and picked up the CJB story much earlier
than the mainstream press, was immediate. In the weeks and days
before the bill became law, news of its provisions began to push
October's Chuck vs. Di chucklefest off Fleet Street's front
pages, particularly when an October 9 demo turned rowdy, then
downright nasty. Several police officers were injured, and dozens
of arrests were made. After that, the government was faced with a
rising tide of protest - but in not in time to stop the CJB's
passage. Inner-city blacks and Asians, Irish immigrants and
renters have just begun to realize that the new law's potential
for harm includes them. The emerging opposition coalition has
been anything but predictable. In fact, since the government
framed the debate as being about combating crime, creative
tactics ranging from the black magic of Daisy's stage show to a
festive attempt to levitate the Parliament have been a must. Even
soccer fans have gotten into the act, producing flyers and zines
to be handed out at games and pubs. A travellers' group collected
signatures from representatives of everything from Earth First!
to BBC Wales at the June 1994 Glastonbury festival, attached
them to a "Notice of Redundancy" (pink slip), and delivered it to
Parliament. Both serious violence and serious silliness (fire
eating, juggling, spiral dancing) have marked most demos. Now
that the bill has become law, a campaign to make it ineffective
through mass civil disobedience has been put into effect.
Travellers have threatened mass encampments, squatters' rights
groups have issued a call to occupy large abandoned buildings en
masse, and organizations opposing a government road-building
project that would displace thousands of working-class residents
said they will will step up, not back away from, confrontational
tactics like work-site takeovers and blocking machinery.
Protesters are emboldened by the success of a popular effort
against the Poll Tax, which was eventually withdrawn due to a
combination of quiet non-payment and street action. As to the
levitation effort, it seemed like a bust at the time but a week
later a spokesman for the engineers handling a nearby subway
tunneling project confirmed reports that Big Ben, Parliament's
famous clock tower, had shifted by two to three millimeters
sometime within the past two weeks. Far be it from me to suggest
a causal relationship between a crowd of hippies, zippies, punks
and Temple of Psychic Youth-niks zapping the place with negative
energy and this movement, but immediately the joke going around
London about "levitation" being a code-word for Semtex explosives
gave way to jibes about the weight of sleaze being all that had
held the government's headquarters on its foundations.
For more info about the fight against the CJB:
football@agog.demon.co.uk - Football Fans Against the Criminal
Justice Bill Liberty, 21 Tabard St., London SE1, 071 378 8659,
ACLU-style civil-rights group freedomnet@gn.apc.org - The Freedom
Network, green/pacifist types Advance Party, PO Box 3290, London
NW2 3UJ, 081 450 6929, represents civil rights of ravers and
other party-goers Friends and Families of Travellers, 33
Bryanston St., Blandford Forum, Dorset DT11 7BS, 0258 453 695,
traveller contact network
-- 30 --