Climate Change Camp At Heathrow

Up to 1,800 extra officers, armed with section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, are being used by the Met to police the upcoming climate change camp at Heathrow Airport.

Shouldn't anti-terrorism legislation be used to prosecute terrorists, not direct action protesters?

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 gives police powers to:

- Stop and search people and vehicles for anything that could be used in connection with terrorism
- Search people even if they do not have evidence to suspect them
- Hold people for up to a month without charge
- Search homes and remove protesters' outer clothes, such as hats, shoes and coats.

The police tactics have echoes of the 2003 anti-war demo at RAF Fairford where law lords eventually ruled police had acted unlawfully in detaining two coachloads of protesters, who were stopped and searched and then turned back even though they were on their way to an authorised demonstration. Police used section 44 of the act 995 times at the Fairford peace camp, even though there was no suggestion of terrorist overtones. The Guardian has established that at least two climate change campaigners have been arrested recently at Heathrow by officers using terrorism powers. Cristina Fraser, a student, was stopped when cycling near the airport with a friend and then charged under section 58 of the Terrorism Act. "I was arrested and held in a police cell for 30 hours. I was terrified. No one knew where I was. They knew I was not a terrorist," she said.

The climate change camp itself will be:

a tented sustainable town, set up wind and solar power systems, plumb compost toilets, schedule 100 workshops, provide catering and music, bars, shuttle buses - and then break off to hold a day of mass protest that will involve direct, and quite probably illegal, action ... the camp will [have] no leaders, no named groups, no constitutions, and no chairman, but where people organise themselves, with all decisions made by consensus.

For the activists, climate change is absolutely top of the agenda. Muzammal Hussain, 35, in 2004 founded the London Islamic Network for the Environment. He is going to visit the camp primarily, he says, to educate himself and attend workshops. "I think I may attract curiosity as a Muslim at the camp, but environmentalism is crucial to Islamic teaching," he says. "The Koran says that we are guardians of the Earth and have a responsibility to look after it. Many imams have traditionally not quite grasped this, though that is changing."

Dom Marsh, 24, believes the camp will be an opportunity to demonstrate practical solutions to climate change. He is the office coordinator of the Permaculture Association (Britain). From the point of view of the camp, that means promoting non-polluting compost toilets, using bikes and recycling waste water.

"I hope the camp will be a good example of how non-hierarchical organisations can achieve change and a model for living in harmony with nature," he says.