No peace at camp

Police arse about as usual at Parliament Square peace protest.

It's the final morning of the weekend-long Parliament Square peace camp and famed protestor Brian Haw seems tired enough to swing at somebody: the police probably, but maybe a journalist if it comes to it.

'It's called sleep deprivation!' he screams, trying to get a moment to himself in his blue chair by the traffic. 'It was the bastard police, being their usual bastard selves.' The peace camp was set up for the weekend to remember the 2004 Fallujah slaughter and as a protest against the occupation of Iraq. The tents were set up in the grass on the Square. Haw says that he was up until at least 6am this morning, because the police were circling the camp, and then looking for him, as usual.

'One Chief Inspector, or this one who I call Chief Inspector, came up at about 6.30am this morning. He said 'is Brian around?' I said Brian? Who are you talking about, Brian? It's Mr Haw to you.' He is furious at police action that he sees as both insidious and over-the-top. 'They come in to attack peaceful men and women,' he says, pointing at the members of the peace-camp behind him. 'Why would they want to talk to them? There is no need for them to do that. There's no need for them [the police] to keep us awake. They are the ones that are illegal.'

Brian Haw has been living on Parliament Square for five years now, next to his anti-war posters and placards. It's nearly six months since the police rushed in and raided and confiscated most of his anti-war display, and only a few weeks since Haw's last court appearance for defending his display and, by definition, everybody's right to protest. 'I am so fucking tired,' he says. 'I don't want people coming over here and asking stupid questions.'

'This is a mass action group,' peace camper David King says. 'This is a protest against the injustice of Iraqis having to pay for the reconstruction of their own country.' He says the group also wanted to demonstrate against the government's 'draconian' restrictions on the right to protest. The police treatment of Brian Haw was a case in point.

King was arrested last year for protesting peacefully on Parliament Square, when the police tried to bag as many protestors as they could under the then-new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. Some of those protestors went to court and were fined, while some were let go. King had to spend nine hours at a police station, for engaging in what he felt was his right as a citizen to protest. He says it wasn't a terrible experience as experiences go, but it was still an infringement on his rights that he should not have had to tolerate.

He says this weekend's peace camp went reasonably well. It's the second one they've done. 'We had people on guard. It wasn't a peaceful night's sleep. The police made arrests. They picked people off. We wanted to be here, just bearing witness to the occupation of Iraq.'

Peace camper Jonathan Stevenson, 25, said the same. 'We have to remember the attack on Fallujah. People are aware, but we have to keep the pressure on here.'