Abstract
On 27 July the Olympic Games, widely regarded as the world’s greatest sporting event, will officially get under way in London after years of planning. Some 15,000 athletes and nine million spectators will descend on the capital for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, eagerly watched by a global TV audience of four billion. There’s much national pride in being awarded the privilege of staging such a prestigious international event. But with the daunting opportunity come inevitable challenges, and there’s also reason to be wary.
No one underestimates the task facing police and officials in delivering a safe experience for participants and audiences. But that cannot excuse infringements of basic civil rights such as peaceful protest and free speech. It would be completely against the original spirit of the Games for the occasion to become a sanction for loss of liberties and mass surveillance. This is London after all, not Beijing.
Sadly, we’ve already seen crackdowns on protest and free expression on the capital’s streets. Westminster City council has introduced illiberal new bye-laws banning tents, sleeping gear and noise amplification equipment around Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Whitehall. These unjust restrictions are a disproportionate interference with the basic freedoms enshrined in our Human Rights Act. Unnecessary and over-broad, they were expressly designed to clear protesters from the streets ahead of the Olympics who ‘spoil the visual aspect’ and are likely to lead to undesirable confrontation between protesters and police.
The bye-laws empower police and designated council officers to stop a person from a ‘prohibited activity’ – using a tent or sleeping bag, for example – within the area. Failure to comply is a criminal offence, and the penalty could be £500. Items can also be seized, with police using ‘reasonable force’. These offences clearly affect the rights of those wishing to protest by staying overnight – whether for a few days or, like the late Brian Haw, several years. The right to protest – including ahead of and during the Olympics – at Britain’s heart of power is crucial to this country’s proud history of peaceful dissent. Yet the council’s reasons include the ‘unsightly’ nature of protest and the need to protect the area’s ‘amenity’. Yes – protest can be a nuisance, but isn’t that often the point? The authority has failed to identify any actual harm that the bye-laws will prevent. Given the ample powers already available for dealing with truly damaging demonstrations, including the Public Order Act 1986, these new measures cannot be justified.
Then there’s the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006. This legislation creates very specific powers, including regulations to curb advertising near Olympic venues and protect the event’s commercial brand. But it’s very broadly framed and allows a ‘constable or enforcement officer’ to ‘enter land or premises’ where they believe banned advertisements are on display and destroy material. Last time we checked, intrusive powers of entry were for fighting crime – not policing poster displays. The regulations do at least provide that advertising activity intended to ‘demonstrate support for or opposition to the views or actions of persons or bodies of persons, or to publicise a belief, cause or campaign or mark or commemorate an event’ is exempt from the banning regime. But this sends a confusing message to police officers tasked with applying these powers in practice. The exemption must be robustly applied if peaceful dissent is to be respected.
Late last year, ministers also revealed that 13,000 military personnel will be stationed at the event, alongside G4S security guards. It’s one thing putting troops on standby for genuine emergencies, quite another to militarise an international sporting event by flooding it with uniformed soldiers. The potential chilling effect on free speech is huge. Whitehall officials have also hinted at new powers for ‘exclusion zones’ in areas around Olympic sites, allowing for the fast-track forced removal of protesters. Following the disruption caused by a lone protester during the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, the Home Office ominously vowed to ‘leave nothing to chance’ to deliver an ‘incident-free’ Olympic Games.
But it’s not only new powers that we need fear. The myriad of vaguely defined existing police powers is highly susceptible to abuse. Powers to stop and search without suspicion have been used disproportionately against ethnic minorities and peaceful protesters. While section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 was repealed following our successful challenge in the European Court of Human Rights, section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 remains and suffers from the same dangerous flaws. It allows police to stop and search anyone – again without suspicion – in a designated area to see if they’re in possession of weapons or potentially ‘dangerous instruments’. The power to designate an area when it’s ‘expedient’ to do so is incredibly broad and wide open to abuse and discriminatory application, hence the statistics showing that black people are 26 times more likely to be stopped under the power than white people.
While details of CCTV plans remain scarce, it’s also been reported that a central police control room will be allowed to access any CCTV network in London and plot the information on a detailed 3D map. Given the sheer number of cameras in the capital, this could effectively enable targeted, real-time surveillance without any safeguards. The Metropolitan Police has also revealed plans to erect scores of new Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, focusing on Olympic venues. We’re told that they’re designed solely to increase safety and provide reassurance, but there’s no effective regulation on how this sophisticated technology is used, who can be targeted, how long imagery is stored for and why.
The Games should be a showcase of all that’s brilliant about Britain, a time to show pride in our history and traditions. They must not become a pretext for the roll out of intrusive powers in a misguided attempt to ‘clean up’ the capital. When the eyes of the world are truly upon us, what a shameful legacy for 2012 and our wonderful city that would be.