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PRESS RELEASE
17 May 2004

PARLIAMENT SQUARE PEACE CAMPAIGNER DENOUNCES POLICE DEMOLITION OF 3 YEAR PROTEST SITE, ON EVE OF COURT APPEARANCE

Tuesday 18 May, 10am: Brian Haw, the Parliament Square peace protestor, who has spent almost 3 years in a continuous anti-war protest vigil opposite the Houses of Parliament (1), will be appearing at Bow Street Magistrates Court.

Mr Haw was arrested and his extensive protest display removed in a sudden midnight police operation on 10 May. The police claimed there was a security threat in the area and said that a security cordon had been imposed. When Mr Haw refused to move he was arrested. He sustained wrist injuries while being put into a police van. Despite the supposed security threat the police van did not leave the scene for some time and, just after Mr Haw's arrest, the suspect car was almost immediately identified to be posing no threat and the security cordon lifted.

The remaining officers removed all of Mr Haw's protest placards from the site. Mr Haw was released from police custody a few hours later and his placards and banners were returned later and left in a pile on the pavement.

Mr Haw was charged with failing to leave a cordoned area and with common assault, for which no evidence of physical injury is needed.

In March this year the police told Mr Haw and his solicitor, leading human rights solicitors
Bindmans, that they were seeking to remove him from Parliament Square but were not able to say which legislation they would employ. This followed a landmark High Court ruling which found in favour of Mr Haw and his right to protest on the site (2).

Mr Haw's solicitor has made a complaint about the incident and the destruction of the display. He has requested that an enquiry be carried out as to how the police action came to be taken.

Mr Haw said, "They have tried to find legal ways of removing me and that failed. Now they are resorting to this. I am waiting for the police to come and record the scene of a crime. When some of my placards were removed before, I got compensation and an apology from the police, so they recognise that it can't be right. Look at the damage and destruction that has occurred here – it shows the contempt with which the deaths of innocents in Iraq are held. They have taken images of injured and dead Iraqi children and trashed them.

"Is it a coincidence that on the very morning of the police action, the Chinese premier was visiting the UK for talks with Tony Blair, who was already having trouble defending his own human rights record in Iraq?"

Notes
1. Brian Haw has been in Parliament Square continuously since 1st June 2001 in protest
against the US/UK support of economic sanctions in Iraq, the invasion of Iraq and the ‘war on terror’.

2. On 4th October 2002 Westminster City Council's High Court proceedings against him for obstruction of the highway were dismissed on the grounds that Brian was exercising his freedom of expression and assembly under the Human Rights Act.