White Rose seems to have missed this (from the BBC on Wednesday):
A group of peace protesters has launched legal proceedings against Gloucestershire police, claiming they used anti-terrorism laws to prevent demonstrations against the war in Iraq.
The complaints centre on RAF Fairford, where American B-52 bombers were based during the conflict.
None of the protesters who demonstrated at the airbase were charged with terrorism offences but they say their human rights were breached.
The pressure group Liberty is calling for an inquiry into the use of section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 at the base.
Officers were granted powers under the legislation to stop and search vehicles and pedestrians in the area near the base between 7 March and 27 April.
But they were obviously all really dangerous people, yes? Absolutely.
One of the people the group says was stopped under the Terrorism act was 11-year-old Isabelle Ellis-Cockcroft, whose father David Cockcroft is taking legal action claiming a breach of human rights.
Isabelle told the BBC: “We were just walking along the road and they stopped us. I did not have a full body search because there was no woman officer there.
“They asked what was in our pockets, wrote down our descriptions and checked a backpack and a bike we had with us.
“They said they were stopping us under the Terrorism Act, but I’m not a terrorist.”
I guess you just can’t be too careful.
Don’t get me wrong. I personally don’t care at all for peaceniks, and I especially dislike them when they have hyphenated surnames. Isabelle Ellis-Cockcroft should be swooning over plasticated pop musicians in preparation for doing It-Girl Studies at Roedean, not demo-ing outside an airbase.
But I will defend the right of hyphenated peaceniks to demonstrate without being arrested as terrorists to the point of putting up a posting about it on White Rose.
Thanks to Chris R. Tame and the Libertarian Alliance Forum for flagging up the story.
