after refresh,strange it was working the day the protestors pulled the fence down,must have been for evidence collection,heavier sigh

"The police have always said that we've behaved in a very, very good fashion and we've always co-operated with the police." - Lindsey German, leader of the Stop the War Coalition, today.

07.10.2007 17:43
TO:
Inspector Stuart Cornish
New Scotland Yard
05 October 2007

Dear Stuart,

Following the decision of the Metropolitan Police to agree to the banning of our long planned demonstration on October 8th we write to make our position as clear as possible and to ask for guarantees regarding the safety and security of those attending the event on the 8th October.

1] We met with you on four separate occasions to discuss the planning of the demonstration on the 8th October. In the first three meetings there was never any question of not being allowed to demonstrate. Only in the very last meeting did you say that you could no longer facilitate the demonstration.

2] The grounds on which you have made this decision is spurious. The sessional order, as you have admitted, is subject to different interpretation at different times but it should never be used to suppress the right to legitimate and peaceful protest. The civil liberties organisation Liberty has written to Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison that, 'this proposed restriction on peaceful protest is a disproportionate interference with the vital democratic rights of free expression and free assembly'.

3] Since 2001 we have arranged with the cooperation of your department 20 demonstrations. These have included the largest demonstration in British political history on February 15th 2003 and also the demonstration to protest at the visit of US president George Bush on November 20th 2003. On the latter nearly 400,000 people marched through Whitehall by the House of Commons on a weekday while parliament was sitting. There was no attempt to prevent this march using the sessional order. All our demonstrations have been peaceful.

4] On the 8th of October we intend to march to parliament. There will a large number of elderly people and families with children attending our event. We strongly request that the Metropolitan Police do not endanger the safety of those attending, either by the use of riot police or through the use of mounted police. Our stewards will be working to facilitate a peaceful protest and we ask for that same cooperation from your officers.

5] We have no intention of disrupting parliament or preventing MPs from attending parliament. In fact the opposite is the case - our protest seeks to make parliament act in the interests of the vast majority of the people of this country who want British troops withdrawn from Iraq.

6] It is a matter of great concern to us that our previous good relations in regard to the planning of legitimate public protest have broken down. You will have received advice that your decision to ban our protest is of dubious legality and we ask you one more time to review your decision in respect of our march.

Andrew Burgin
Lindsey German
Chris Nineham
Stop the War Coalition

"strange it was working the day the protestors pulled the fence down,must have been for evidence collection"
Then it should come on later for more collecting

Hi, managed to grab a few images from the Trafalgar Square webcam

are we up north being filtered

The images on the BBC site haven't changed for hours, and the Parliament Square webcam on the camvista site is showing up as being "currently unavaialable for operational reasons"

happens again theres no excuse
 http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:xS_3XCLDO9sJ:www.theregister.co.uk/2003/02/16/central_london_webcams_go_dark/+parliament+square+webcam&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=13&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

Sorry it wasn't the cam vista site by the way, it's this link:
 http://www.webviews.co.uk/network/camera/england/london/parliamentsquare.html

Latest image there from 5:15

at 13:58 and has'nt moved since,thats the link in top of page.