[Marxism] Scottish Socialist appeal

[Richard Menec <menecraj@xxxxxxx>]

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/589/ssp.htm


Weekly Worker 589 Thursday August 11 2005

Scottish Socialist appeal

The Scottish Socialist Party is under attack. Four SSP members of parliament
and their staff have been issued with a month-long ban without wages for
defending the right to protest against the meeting of the G8 leaders.

We are attempting to generate as much international opposition as possible
to this draconian attack. Therefore we request your solidarity in the
following ways:

l circulate this letter among your own members, affiliates and contacts.

l Sign the online petition at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/754099600?ltl=1121800103.


l Write to George Reid, presiding officer of the Scottish parliament, to
register your support for the SSP, at Queensberry House, Scottish
parliament, Holyrood, Edinburgh EH99 1SP (email:
presiding.officer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx).

l Contribute to the SSP's fighting fund, to pay the cost of legal action to
overturn the suspension of our representatives, and to cover the wages of
our staff. Send to: Scottish Socialist Party, 70 Stanley Street, Glasgow,
G41 1JB, Scotland.

The crime of the four MSPs? Mounting a peaceful, silent protest, lasting
five minutes, at first minister's question time. SSP members Colin Fox,
Frances Curran, Rosie Kane and Carolyn Leckie held up placards demanding
that first minister Jack McConnell carry out the will of the parliament by
defending the right to protest peacefully against the G8 leaders at
Gleneagles on July 6.

Five months earlier the Scottish parliament had passed a motion supporting
the right of people to protest at the G8 summit. Yet just six days prior to
the planned protest, official permission had still not been granted for the
protest to go ahead. We believe that this was deliberately done by the
authorities, in order to cause confusion and undermine the planned
demonstration.

This unprecedented and draconian penalty was imposed through a process which
makes a mockery of natural justice. The SSP MSPs were tried in their
absence, without any kind of due process, right of appeal or any of the
basic human rights that are enshrined in law.

This attack is not only targeted at the SSP representatives. By banning them
for the month of September, 130,000 voters will be denied a voice in the
Scottish parliament.

In the last six years the SSP has established itself as a tireless defender
of working class interests at home and around the world. It has a proud
record of supporting workers in struggle and has been at the forefront of
opposition to imperialist aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2003 we
received 130,000 votes and six MSPs were elected. The SSP, as the only party
in Scotland consistently opposing the neoliberal agenda, has earned the
enmity of the mainstream political parties and the political establishment.
Therefore we cannot let these attacks on democracy, freedom of speech and
the right to protest succeed.

We are campaigning internationally to bring pressure on the Scottish
parliament to overturn the ban and the financial penalties imposed on the
SSP MSPs. Already messages of support have been pouring in from all over
Europe and the world, from members of the European parliament, from trades
unions and from individual workers.

Please add your voice to the growing campaign by helping in any or all the
above ways.

Colin Fox
SSP convenor


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