Even as public meetings and rallies in support of the right to protest are being held, organisers from G8Alternatives have announced that they may be forced to move the demonstration planned for the first day of the G8 Summit into the heart of Edinburgh City.
Today, Wednesday 15th June, members of the Stop The War Coalition delivered a letter to the home secretary (Charles Clarke) calling on the government to reverse the ban imposed by the council on the planned protest at the Gleneagles Summit.
G8Alternatives have been advertising the protest for several months, calling for people to assemble at Glenagles train station at midday, intending to march past the gates of Gleneagles hotel.
However the security road closures imposed in the immediate area rule out the possibility of the planned march. Further restrictions have been placed on the numbers of people who could attend a possible protest rally in the park of neighbouring Aucherarder village limiting them to 4000. Yet even this possibility seems now out of reach after G8Alternatives were told they would have to provide £5M worth of insurance coverage in order to get the go ahead for the rally - a figure which they say they cannot afford.
Alex Salmond (SNP) said pressure to ban the march had been put on local authorities by the Home Office and Foreign Office. Tony Benn added that the march had been banned on the orders of the Government saying "To have a political exclusion zone is to confirm our worst fears about the state of civil liberties in Britain at the moment"
Andrew Burgin from The Stop The War Coalition said: "If we can't march in Gleneagles, we will consider going to Edinburgh - probably to the American Consulate."
Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland seemed to sum up the position of the authorities last night when he said "I just don't think it's appropriate to demonstrate in a part of rural Perthshire"
The prospect of 20,000 demonstrators who have been denied to right to protest at Gleneagles then descending on Edinburgh is one set to cause alarm in the city.
G8Alternatives have been advertising the protest for several months, calling for people to assemble at Glenagles train station at midday, intending to march past the gates of Gleneagles hotel.
However the security road closures imposed in the immediate area rule out the possibility of the planned march. Further restrictions have been placed on the numbers of people who could attend a possible protest rally in the park of neighbouring Aucherarder village limiting them to 4000. Yet even this possibility seems now out of reach after G8Alternatives were told they would have to provide £5M worth of insurance coverage in order to get the go ahead for the rally - a figure which they say they cannot afford.
Alex Salmond (SNP) said pressure to ban the march had been put on local authorities by the Home Office and Foreign Office. Tony Benn added that the march had been banned on the orders of the Government saying "To have a political exclusion zone is to confirm our worst fears about the state of civil liberties in Britain at the moment"
Andrew Burgin from The Stop The War Coalition said: "If we can't march in Gleneagles, we will consider going to Edinburgh - probably to the American Consulate."
Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland seemed to sum up the position of the authorities last night when he said "I just don't think it's appropriate to demonstrate in a part of rural Perthshire"
The prospect of 20,000 demonstrators who have been denied to right to protest at Gleneagles then descending on Edinburgh is one set to cause alarm in the city.
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