[Free-sklyarov-uk] Dmitry Released on Bail

[Julian T. J. Midgley]

On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Kieran Barry wrote:

> On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Martin Keegan wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Julian T. J. Midgley wrote:
> >
> > > What's the most effective action we can take next?
> >
> > Campaigning:
> > 	need to come up with an argument to get more people onto the
> >                 streets. 35 ain't bad, though, but no-one's going to
> > 		protest without a good reason... how many more would
> > 		be interested in joining in future similar actions?
> >         first protest was unbelievably lucky, and ideas for improving
> >                 effectiveness of future actions were proposed on the day
> >
> Hey, how about _talking_ to people next time. The demo on Friday was
> quite funny, since we evolved from typical geeks (silent, sheepish) into
> campaigning geeks (sheepish, pretty quiet) by the time I had to go at 2.

To be fair, our activities on the march through Hyde Park were largely
dictated by the Newsnight crew (though several managed to take the time to
both talk to and distribute flyers to passers by), and we'd only been at
the Embassy for about 15 minutes by two o'clock, where we found it was
difficult to talk to people on account of the fact that next to no-one
could walk past us, since to do so required them to wander down the middle
of the road.  Nevertheless, several of the assembled protesters took the
initiative and split off into small groups to hunt down pedestrians in
Grosvenor Square whilst the remainder variously protested loudly, sung,
and remained quiet for interviews as Newsnight's director requested.

But your point still has validity.  I don't know what our rights are vis a
vis making soap box speeches in places like Picadilly Circus and Charing
Cross, but that might be something to try next time, in addition to
attempting to engage as many of the public as possible in conversation.

<satire>
There is always the difficulty that your average m.o.t.p comes across the
protest as he walks from one urgent appointment with McDonald's Big
Mac Dispensers to another even more urgent appointment with Virgin
Megastore's Top Twenty Singles Rack, and is disinclined to delay his
perusal of Britney's latest item of undersized shiny leatherware in order
to chat to some random punter who's just shouted "Free Dmitry" in his ear
and thrust a flourescent leaflet into the remains of his Big Mac.
</satire>

If we can stop one in twenty we are probably doing very well indeed ;-)

All the best,

Julian


-- 
Julian T. J. Midgley                    http://www.xenoclast.org
Cambridge, England.                       PGP Key ID: 0xBCC7863F
UK Free Dmitry Protest:              http://uk.freesklyarov.org/