Paying to protest

So much coming out of the woodwork today, just found the following article:-

Paying to protest
Did you know … that you can be charged by councils for demonstrating against them?

As the House of Lords nears a decision on whether the Metropolitan police were right to cordon off and hold peaceful May Day protesters for over seven hours in 2001, a number of recent protesters against the Israeli action in Gaza questioned whether riot police in balaclavas and attempts to contain crowds were really the best way for "working together for a safer London".

As local protest movements are discovering, myriad laws are being subverted and misunderstood by local authorities and the police. A new generation, as Henry Porter writes, are "increasingly coming up against authoritarian laws that were put in place while so few were paying attention".

Last summer, pupils from St George's Roman Catholic school in Salford received a bill for nearly £2,000, which the local council claimed was for managing the cost of a protest against the closure of their school, including closing a road for five minutes and keeping a set of traffic lights on red while the schoolchildren crossed.

The power stemmed from the Road Traffic Regulation Act 2004, but as Alex Gask, a lawyer for Liberty pointed out at the time, councils are only allowed to charge for gatherings classified as sporting or social events and entertainment. He said Salford appeared to be "bending over backwards" to find a reason for the charge.

READ MORE at:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/26/protest-civil-liberties