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Public Petitions Committee, 28 Jun 2005

28 Jun 2005 · S2 · Public Petitions Committee

Item of business

New Petitions

G8 Summit (Peaceful Protest) (PE871)<br />G8 Summit (World Poverty) (PE874)

Ruskell, Mark Green Mid Scotland and Fife Watch on SPTV

I welcome that statement of intent from the First Minister.I watched a documentary on Sunday night. It featured an African child of around 16 who died giving birth. All of us in the Scottish Parliament now understand that we do not just have a right to protest at the G8 summit; we have a duty to protest at the G8 summit. In recent years, there has been a huge failure on the part of the G8 to tackle major problems and the millennium development goals.I do not want protesters in Strathearn to be thwarted from getting their concerns across; I do not want local people to be unnecessarily disrupted—and I speak as somebody who lives within 12 miles of Gleneagles hotel; and I do not want the leaders' safety to be put in jeopardy. However, we can deliver rights for the three different parties.Because there is a lack of agreed routes for marches in the area around Strathearn, there could be a complete free-for-all next Wednesday. Over the past year, when arrangements for the summit have been discussed, the attitude of the police has been, "Well, you know, whatever happens in the area, we'll be able to deal with it." That attitude really concerns me.Protesters are coming to Strathearn and were planning to do so long before Bono or Bob Geldof extended an invitation. The people who are coming have a lawful right to protest, but they have no lawful way of actually exercising that right in the area. That worries me. The attitude of the police seems to be, "Well, the make poverty history demonstration is on the Saturday four days before the leaders arrive, so you'll have had your demonstration." I do not think that that is good enough. Human rights cannot come in instalments. Either we have the right to protest or we do not.We need to find a solution. It cannot be beyond the wit of the British state—which we are part of, Rosie Kane is part of, and the police and the Executive are part of—to enter into dialogue with the local council and with peaceful protest groups to try to come to a solution that respects the rights of local people, respects the rights of the leaders to meet at Gleneagles hotel safely, and respects the rights of protestors to protest, as called for in PE871.The geography of the Strathearn area is being redesigned by the security operation to make it extremely difficult for any sort of lawful right to protest to be delivered. That is a mistake.I leave members with the thought that I do not want the epitaph of the summit to be, "We dealt with what happened, but we did not uphold people's rights to protest." We cannot just deal with the situation; we have to uphold people's rights and we can do that, but some urgent dialogue is needed. The main demonstrations are planned for Wednesday next week, so we have very little time. I welcome the First Minister's words to which the convener referred, but we need a sense of urgency and I ask the committee to consider that in its response to the petition.