After 50 years British Government bans nuclear protest

The Independent, UK, March 8, 2008

Fifty years after historic march, protest camp at atomic weapons base is outlawed in a new blow to civil liberties

ABBIE TRAYLER-SMITH

Kate Hudson, the chairman of CND, with its vice-president, Walter Wolfgang, outside the nuclear base at Aldermaston

By Kim Sengupta

It survived six Tory governments, the end of the Cold War and the rise and fall of mass marches against the British nuclear deterrent. But after 50 years in which the tradition of peaceful demonstration has been maintained outside the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, the New Labour era has finally done for one of the most famous symbols of protest in British political history.

Today would have seen the latest gathering of the band of women who have assembled on the second Saturday of each month since the 1980s to object to the continuing development of the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent. Instead, following a High Court ruling this week, the protest tents are being removed, demonstrators are being threatened with arrest and “no camping” signs are being erected.

From being a symbol of the right to protest, Aldermaston has become the latest testament to the desire of successive New Labour governments to curtail the right to assemble, demonstrate and object to government policy.

Continued . . .

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