England's Criminal Justice Bill: More criminals, less justice By Mitzi Waltz She had long blond hair and skin like Devonshire cream, all fetchingly displayed beneath a sweeping black witches' cape and traditional pointed hat. On stage at The Underworld in London as part of a "politicized porn" road show called Smut Fest '94, Daisy was making a speech against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill a damn sight more mesmerizing than listening to some political hack ramble on. "It's more criminals, less justice," she purred, "it's about fear and subversion - they're so transparent." Her cape, hat and teeny weeny black-leather bikini came off one by one as she compared the likely effect of the Bill, which that evening was poised to become law, to the English witch hunts of long ago. Down to a pair of tall boots and a suspiciously phallic broom, Daisy shouted out "express yourself - it's a birthright. Do what you will!" and, to rousing (and no doubt aroused) applause, proceeded to express herself in several ways that lived up to the Smut Fest name. Stripping away rights. So what's this law that's got strippers hitting the soapbox along with ravers, musicians, sound-system operators, squatters, travellers, hunt saboteurs, eco-freaks and a good portion of "average Brits"? The CJB was cooked up at the Conservative ("Tory") Party's 1993 convention as the centerpiece of a "crackdown on crime" campaign strategy. Like the American Omnibus Crime Bill that it resembles, the actual law is an inch- thick book that combines dozens of proposals into one easier-to- sneak-through package. Here's just a few of its low points: % Abolishes the right to silence at arrest. % Reinstitutes the "sus laws," allowing cops to stop, search and arrest anyone based on undefined suspicion. % Gives police broad new powers to criminalize any assembly, rave, party or protest and arrest participants or even those suspected of being on their way to such an event. % Turns trespass from a civil matter into a criminal offense, with obvious implications for squatters, hunt sabs, protestors and strikers. % Allows for 24-hour evictions - aimed at squatters, but as easily used on anyone who's gotten behind on their rent. % Broadens anti-terrorism and anti-porn laws to allow search and confiscation of any home or business that a cop (not a court) suspects of such activities. BBS sysops bewareI % Puts the burden of proof under its anti-terrorism provisions on the arrested party, not the courts - you must prove that seized items were not for use in banned activities. % Criminalizes the nomadic "new age traveller" lifestyle via its the trespass and assembly provisions, and by closing current legal campsites. % Lets cops take "intimate samples" such as blood, hair and semen, from anyone arrested, even if not convicted of any crime, and add the info derived to a national database. That's only the ugliest half of it, but it's enough to scare the bejeezus out of anyone in the UK who's ever tried to block a bulldozer, walk a wildcat picket line or get muddy at one of the infamous mega-raves that have been happening on countryside summer nights near London for several years now. Countering the crime scare. Opposition from the counterculture, which has its own media and picked up the CJB story much earlier than the mainstream press, was immediate. In the weeks and days before the bill became law, news of its provisions began to push October's Chuck vs. Di chucklefest off Fleet Street's front pages, particularly when an October 9 demo turned rowdy, then downright nasty. Several police officers were injured, and dozens of arrests were made. After that, the government was faced with a rising tide of protest - but in not in time to stop the CJB's passage. Inner-city blacks and Asians, Irish immigrants and renters have just begun to realize that the new law's potential for harm includes them. The emerging opposition coalition has been anything but predictable. In fact, since the government framed the debate as being about combating crime, creative tactics ranging from the black magic of Daisy's stage show to a festive attempt to levitate the Parliament have been a must. Even soccer fans have gotten into the act, producing flyers and zines to be handed out at games and pubs. A travellers' group collected signatures from representatives of everything from Earth First! to BBC Wales at the June 1994 Glastonbury festival, attached them to a "Notice of Redundancy" (pink slip), and delivered it to Parliament. Both serious violence and serious silliness (fire eating, juggling, spiral dancing) have marked most demos. Now that the bill has become law, a campaign to make it ineffective through mass civil disobedience has been put into effect. Travellers have threatened mass encampments, squatters' rights groups have issued a call to occupy large abandoned buildings en masse, and organizations opposing a government road-building project that would displace thousands of working-class residents said they will will step up, not back away from, confrontational tactics like work-site takeovers and blocking machinery. Protesters are emboldened by the success of a popular effort against the Poll Tax, which was eventually withdrawn due to a combination of quiet non-payment and street action. As to the levitation effort, it seemed like a bust at the time but a week later a spokesman for the engineers handling a nearby subway tunneling project confirmed reports that Big Ben, Parliament's famous clock tower, had shifted by two to three millimeters sometime within the past two weeks. Far be it from me to suggest a causal relationship between a crowd of hippies, zippies, punks and Temple of Psychic Youth-niks zapping the place with negative energy and this movement, but immediately the joke going around London about "levitation" being a code-word for Semtex explosives gave way to jibes about the weight of sleaze being all that had held the government's headquarters on its foundations. For more info about the fight against the CJB: football@agog.demon.co.uk - Football Fans Against the Criminal Justice Bill Liberty, 21 Tabard St., London SE1, 071 378 8659, ACLU-style civil-rights group freedomnet@gn.apc.org - The Freedom Network, green/pacifist types Advance Party, PO Box 3290, London NW2 3UJ, 081 450 6929, represents civil rights of ravers and other party-goers Friends and Families of Travellers, 33 Bryanston St., Blandford Forum, Dorset DT11 7BS, 0258 453 695, traveller contact network -- 30 --