At a time when our right to protest seems to be in crisis, a Greenham Woman sent us the below wise words.
“It is imperative, particularly at this moment in history to show our important protests of the time.
It’s shocking that our actions and protests were carried out under a Thatcher government with Heseltine. If we were to take part in so many of these actions today… dancing on the silos; the teddy bears picnic and the mass action of women cutting the fence with bolt cutters… today under a Labour government we’d likely be put in prison as a threat to national security or deemed linked to terrorist groups.
So maybe it’s important to remind people just how much our rights to protest have been and are continuing to be eroded.”
The Greenham Women’s actions at the Peace Camp, which lasted from 1981 and lasted around 20 years, did lead to many Greenham Women being imprisoned, but it was often for short periods of time, often for civil offences such as non payment of fines, and they were, at no time, labelled as a terrorist group. Despite continual challenges from a Government that many people, still today, feel was repressive, and from the police and other elements of state apparatus, Greenham Womens’ rights to protest were upheld, time after time.
The right to protest by holding meetings and demonstrations with each other is enshrined in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. History always has lessons for the searcher – we could do worse than look at the actions of these incredible, indomitable women and be inspired by their fight for what they believed in.