Rights to protest should not end now

Editorial Department • Published 29 Jul 2010 16:00 0 Comments

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Dear Sir - I am writing in support of a letter to your paper from fellow trade unionists last week expressing concern about the legal interference in the right to protest from our rulers in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Having read a number of reviews of the legislation and listened to an excellent set of speakers at a public meeting in Enniskillen recently. I can only come to the conclusion that the legislation will have no positive affect on dealing with contentious parades (which is what it was supposedly designed for) and will instead restrict your readers rights to peaceful protest against wrong doing whether as members of the local community or their respective trade union.

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in Article 11 (1) states that, "Everyone has the right of peaceful assembly" and at Article 11(2) "No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are proscribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society on the interests of national security or public safety". Current legislation is more than sufficient to deal with protests which do not comply with this article (Public Order (Northern Ireland) Order 1987 )

Under the proposals on parades and protests if 50 Fermanagh people gathered to protest at cut backs in services to our elderly or our disabled and did not give 37 days notice (a totally impracticable period) we would be committing a criminal offence and liable to six months in jail and a £5,000 fine. In the recent past this would have meant that a protest at the Erne Hospital against Health Service cuts could have potentially been a criminal act. Surely it should be the cuts that are criminal rather than the peaceful protesters. Likewise recent protests against job losses in Quinn's and other workplaces such as Visteon and Nortel would equally have been regarded as criminal offences. Indeed during some of the most difficult years in our society, major trade union and community responses to sectarian intimidation and murder would also have been deemed criminal acts because of their necessary spontaneity.

Of course we are being told by the powers at the Assembly that they will use discretion and there may be limited circumstances wherein trade unions or community organisations could get permission from Peter and Martin in the big house to protest against the cuts the assembly are inevitably going to try to impose on the community in the coming years.

I have news for the two of them and their allies in the assembly. Myself and thousands of other community and trade union activists have spent our lives protesting against the rich and powerful in our communities and we have no intention of stopping now.

In conclusion there are more than enough laws on the statute books to deal with assemblies which are not peaceful. There is absolutely no justification for restricting those organised by trades union and community organisations which are in the main totally peaceful. I would ask all trade unionists and community activists to lobby their political representatives to have this undemocratic legislation consigned to the dustbin of history. While I am no fan of American Presidents in regards to this legislation I would say in the words of President Jefferson "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance". Let us all be eternally vigilant about our right to protest!

Yours faithfully

Jim Quinn

UNITE the union

Enniskillen.

This letter appeared in Impartial Reporter 29 Jul 10

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