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Peace protesters are evicted
PEACE protesters were evicted from Parliament Square on Friday.
Mayor Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Authority made the order – swiftly erecting a security fence around the square.
A spokesman for the GLA said Mr Livingstone did not want it to become an “illegal camp site”.
He said: “Parliament Square is not a campsite and no city can tolerate a situation where people are setting up tents and urinating and defecating on one of its central squares.
“The Mayor of London respects Brian Haw’s peaceful protest, but others have clearly overstepped the mark.”
The GLA said up to 28 tents have been scattered across the square in recent weeks and the majority of people in them were not protesters.
Veteran peace protester Mr Haw has permission to have a 24-hour demonstration site on the pavement of Parliament Square under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.
The metal security fence skirts around Mr Haw’s tent, where he has been living since he began his anti-war vigil in 2001.
But access to the rest of the square is being restricted by GLA officials and a small number of police officers.
Maria Gallagstegun, who has been living in a tent there for more than a year in protest at the Iraq war, said the authorities had acted without warning.
“I am outraged and I am very disappointed,: she said. “They are taking away our right to demonstrate freely.”
She added: “We have got no intention of going.”
Mr Haw, from Redditch, Worcestershire, said: “What’s this idea that I can sleep here but nobody else can?” |
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