PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
12 April 2002
The Mayday Festival of Alternatives is to turn the capital upside down promising 11 days of subversive, fun and totally legal community events.

Taking place from 26 April to 6 May, it features events such as the Fayre for Queers of all Sexualities, a number of Critical Mass bike rides, the Loony Left Football Tournament, a Hackney Not 4 Sale picnic,a "pirate screening" in protest against Channel Four's censorship of
Injustice, the world movie premiere of Indymedia's Genoa Zona Rossa, a night with Rob Newman and other hilarious Anarchist comix, a Roma/Balkan music extravaganza in support of refugees, a health and healing day, as well as dozens of hands-on workshops, film screenings, gigs, solidarity events and pickets.

YET THE FESTIVAL HAS BEEN PUT TOGETHER UNDER THE MOST DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES. The Metropolitan and City Police forces have repeatedly violated the rights to free speech and free assembly, intimidating and photographing people attending public meetings, and putting pressure on
landlords of venues that are being used.

THIS MORNING the police raided a squatted social centre in Stoke Newington, Hackney (see below and Indymedia coverage) because they believed that the building was being "used for the organisation and support of Mayday", when really
it was providing much-needed services to local people in a cash-strapped borough that neglects its statutory duties. They have also threatened to raid UK website hosts who tried to put up the website for the festival, delaying its launch several times.

Together with the show trial against the WOMBLE 7 (picked up on the way to a Halloween party last October) starting on 29 April, the increased harassment shows that the state has no scruples in extending its attacks on the DIY/anti-capitalist movement, even if this means violating human
rights and so-called democratic procedures. Festival volunteers also believe that these and the much-hyped emphasis on potential "violence" on 1 May are initial moves in a wider campaign towards criminalising dissent.

The Mayday Festival of Alternatives is inspired by a month of dissident art/culture events in France, held last year in response to the irrelevance and media saturation of the General Election 2001. It is also a model used worldwide to encourage political awareness and expression, e.g. Festival Des Pueblos in Boston, USA - May 2002. The festival is a response to the frequently asked question 'What are
you for? What do you actually want?' We aim to show our goals of creating a society based on solidarity, autonomy and co-operation - in practice. We want to demonstrate that there is a future beyond capitalism, apathy, wage-labour and the state.

NOTES:
1. The Mayday Festival of Alternatives group is part of the Mayday 2002 umbrella collective. Actions and Events include: Film showings, gigs,comedy & cabaret, free shops, mass picnics, bicycle rides and art exhibitions. The Week-long reclaimed social centre will be offering infoshop, café, & workshops. For more detailed info about individual
events, please check the timetable on the website ourmayday.org.uk, put together by the Mayday 2002 collective.

2. In an early morning raid today, 30 riot police in conjunction with London Electricity used a hydraulic ram to force entry to the Radical Dairy. The police said that they had a warrant to investigate the abstraction of electricity and the misuse of drugs. No drugs were found and the occupants had already applied for a legal electricity account.
However, a computer [which was used as part of a free Internet service for local residents] was seized as "proof" of abstracting electricity. The police also read out a statement saying that because a Mayday leaflet was displayed in the window of the Social Centre that it proved
that the building was used as "part of the infrastructure to Mayday", which now seems to be an illegal act! No one was arrested but the centre is now without electricity. During the raid angry residents came out onto the streets and gave the cops hassle. This is the third visit the
cops have made to the dairy. The first being on Friday 5 April. They used the guise that they had broken down outside the dairy and were waiting for a repair vehicle, that obviously explained why they were outside for 3 hours taking peoples photographs. On this occasion they left after the local residents came out in support of the Radical Dairy, which has been offering free events like Yoga, Shiatsu massages, a vegan cafe, DJ workshop for kids, Drama and singing lessons. The second occasion was on Tuesday April 9th, three cops from different police
stations inc. a video camera were filming the structure of the building.The police were there for only 10 minutes as again local residents complained at the continued harassment of the collective which runs the centre (contact the  radicaldiary@hotmail.com).

3. Previous hosts of the ourmayday website were contacted by the Metropolitan police demanding to know all of the personal details of the people behind the site. They were told they must remove the site (or not host it) or be faced with a police raid during which their web servers could be seized. The Police did not say under what legislation they are making these demands and threats. The suspicion exists that they acted outside any legal framework, as the new Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIP), which will give the police some new powers to demand information from Internet Service Providers, has not yet come into force.

4. The Legal Defence and Monitoring Group (LDMG) has recently uncovered secret Mayday Sentencing Guidelines that instruct Judges to hand down heavy sentences in connection with Mayday protests in both 2000 and 2001. The document titled "Mayhem" first came to the attention of LDMG
in June 2001 at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court. The defence barrister Ed Rees QC originally asked to look at the document, but the court refused this on the grounds that it was secret! Sentencing in England and Wales is supposedly based on individual circumstances and the
seriousness of the offence, but clearly in the case of Mayday protestors this is not the case. LDMG can be contacted at:  ldmgmail@yahoo.co.uk
5. The WOMBLE 7 trial: On 31 October 2001 a group of approximately 15 people, many wearing white overalls to symbolise ghosts and Halloween masks were harassed by uniformed police officers whilst walking down Oxford Street on their way to a Halloween party. Seven were arrested and
held in police custody for between 14 and 19 hours. The group are probably to be tried by Roger Davies, District Judge at Horseferry Road Magistrates Court. Davies has achieved some infamy as a biased judge of protestors. Following Mayday 2000, he commented in court that protestors who pleaded not guilty and opted for trials, were
"gutless", implying that he "knew" they were guilty and therefore saw no need for them to have time to prepare a defence! The barrister who prosecuted all the Mayday protestors in 2001 will be prosecuting the WOMBLE 7.
This trial is about the criminalisation of dissent, and the political repression of a group of activists. The date of the trial starting on 29 April, two days before Mayday is no coincidence. The state believes that it has found a way of keeping the seven and their supporters out of the Mayday celebrations.
Parallels have been drawn between this trial and the OZ obscenity trial in the late 1960's. OZ was a counter-cultural magazine and the trial became a cause celebre. It was widely felt that the magazine was being targeted as a way of getting at the counter-culture as a whole. The
state is fearful of 'anti-capitalism' and has targeted the WOMBLES as a highly visible symbol of the movement. Groups such as Indymedia ( http://www.indymedia.org.uk) and the Mayday 2002 Collective are under increasing attack from authorities all over the world.