Information for Social Change (Dec 1994)
IT= Information Terrorism?
Abstract
The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act is now law, due in no small part to the consistent media portrayal of the likely victims of its many clauses as marginal groups. The Times wholly misjudged the situation when it called them "an alliance of New Age travellers, rock festival fans and squatters." There have been exceptions, of course, offering a semblance of balance. The Independent noted that it would make "innocent people into enemies of the state", but in the main it was left to the public - with the support of groups such as Liberty - to protest against some of the most repressive legislation these islands have ever seen. By effectively removing the right to peaceful protest, by restricting movement, by giving the police unprecedented powers of stop and search, by removing the right to silence; we must ask: are we still living in a democracy?
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