Latest News About England: Guardian marks anniversary of UK's oldest human rights group 80 years on

domingo, 23 de febrero de 2014

Guardian marks anniversary of UK's oldest human rights group 80 years on

Council for Civil Liberties' birth announced in letter to Manchester Guardian at height of 1930s hunger marches

Eighty years ago, in the depths of the 1930s economic depression, Ronald Kidd, a journalist, found himself in the middle of Trafalgar Square witnessing bloody clashes between thousands of police and newly arrived hunger marchers and their supporters.

He was angered by the actions of police agent provocateurs who, dressed as ordinary workmen, attempted to incite violence among the peaceful protestors. Seventy-five protesters were badly injured that day in October 1932 when the largest of a series of national hunger marches reached London.

Kidd was so shocked by what he saw that he went on to become a founding figure of what is Britain's oldest human rights campaign and is now known as Liberty. He was to be the first general secretary of the Council for Civil Liberties, the cross-party organisation founded to protect civil liberties and promote human rights. Its birth was announced 80 years ago on Monday in a letter to the Manchester Guardian published on 24 February 1934.

The signatories raised fears that a similar bloody reception was being prepared by the Metropolitan police for the next national hunger march to arrive in the capital. The letter was signed by HG Wells, Vera Brittain, Dr Edith Summerskill, Clement Atlee, Professor Harold Laski and a further nine of the most prominent supporters of the Council for Civil Liberties. They promised to "maintain a vigilant observation over the next few days" of the treatment of the hunger marchers by acting as responsible and neutral legal observers.

Kidd's friend EM Forster, along with AP Herbert and HG Wells, were among those who joined him and his partner, Sylvia Scaffardi, who were present at that second march watching out for police agent provocateurs.

A letter marking that 80th anniversary is published by the Guardian , highlighting the organisation's early history and signed by Liberty's director, Shami Chakrabarti, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, Doreen Lawrence, the actor Vanessa Redgrave, the former Conservative chief whip Andrew Mitchell MP, the children's laureate, Malorie Blackman, the human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce and the Green party MP Caroline Lucas, among others.

The letter also highlights Kidd's role, in October 1932 when he was among the 100,000-strong crowd who had greeted the hunger marchers with their petition to parliament, which had 1m signatures. Thousands of police had been mobilised and the march was blocked from reaching Westminster with the worst violence breaking out around Trafalgar Square, where Kidd witnessed the bloodshed first-hand.

Before the next planned hunger march in February 1934, he was determined to gather support across the political spectrum, from lawyers, artists and scientists, to raise the alarm over the threat to peaceful protest.

On 22 February 1934, the Council for Civil Liberties was formed at a meeting in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields church on Trafalgar Square, where an 80th anniversary exhibition is being held.

Those attending vowed to defend not just peaceful protest but also the "whole spirit of British freedom". Forster was the first president, and other early supporters included AA Milne, who was a vice-president, George Bernard Shaw, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and JB Priestley.

The letter to the Manchester Guardian, published two days after the founding meeting, noted the attorney-general had hinted at the possibility of bloodshed when the hunger marchers arrived, and said that some of the preparations, including instructing shopkeepers to barricade their windows, could not but create an unjustified and dangerous atmosphere of misgiving.

"In view of the general and alarming tendency to encroachment on the liberty of the citizen, there has recently been formed a Council for Civil Liberties," they announced in their letter. "Relevant and well-authenticated reports by responsible persons will be welcomed and investigated by the council," the letter promised.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Hyde Park when the 1934 hunger march arrived in London amid a heavy police presence. The new observers confirmed the presence once again of police agent provocateurs.

But the official predictions of bloodshed were proved wrong and this time the rally passed off peacefully. Kidd's initiative ensured that a permanent body of observers was established.

On Kidd's death in 1942, Forster wrote a tribute to him which is carved on a plaque that still hangs in Liberty's offices: "Passionate in his hatred of injustice, wise in judgment, fearless in action, he championed the liberties of the people in the fight that is never done," it reads.

Chakrabarti said: "Our founders could hardly have envisaged that, 80 years on, Liberty would be needed more than ever with blanket surveillance, toxic immigration policies and direct attacks on the very idea of human rights and the rule of law. We owe it as much to previous generations as to those yet to come to keep up 'the fight that is never done'."

Alan Travis