John Reidford, Glasgow Trades Council Secretary - £50; Hugh Wyper, Glasgow TGWU District Secretary - £50; Keith Stoddart, TGWU branch chairman - £30; Alex Campbell, AUEW convenor - £25; Charlie Montgomery, former EEPTU Executive candidate - £20; Norman Bean, AUEW shop steward - £20; James Brown, student activist - £20.
These savage fines, totalling £215, were metred out to the first seyen defendants in the continuing trials of 76 anti-fascist pickets in Glasgow. They are the first in the battery of hammerblows which the Sheriff Court plans to Tain on unose wno massec to bar the road to the National Front at Kingston Halls on 24 May.
Far more serious than the fines themselves, however, is the judgement on which the penalties are based. For the findings of guilt were based on an interpretation of the law on breach of the peace which directly threatens the right of free demonstration. This ruling is effectively that the police have the right to arrest anyone associated with any demonstration which they deem to have changed in in purpose from its orginal objective to one which they consider creates an unlawful assembly.
How widely the resulting prosecutions can be defined is revealed in the. coaviction of Charlie Montgomery. Monteomery was convicted of breach of the peace, obstruction, and shouting and swearing, solely on the testimony of two pam cromnes poncemen. one or these, Cullen, identified Alex Campbell as Montgomery, and both stated that they had merely put him in a van after he was handed over to them by two uniormed oicers. Newner coura state what Montgomery had been doing, and the second cop, Robb, could not even say that-he had been part of the crowd. Of 29 other prosecution witnesses, not one gave further testimony against MonThe credibility of the remaining 12 sergeants and constadies wno gave evrdence may be judged from the following facts. Constable MacAdam, who claimed to have arrested Hugh Wyper, is well RADES COUNCIL known by many defendants to have been on duty at Govan Police Station as they arrived in custody. He was seen to approacn une anver of the nirst police van and ask, 'What's going on at the Kingston Halls?" Constable MacKenzie, who appeared as the second arresting officer for Hugh Wyper, identified John Reidford as Wyper in-court.
The evidence of the three fascist witnesses can best be judged by the fact that the main one was NF boss and racist demagogue Kingsley Read. Sheriff-Principal Lord Wilson, however, has given une lascists a lar greater prize than witness-box credibility. For the first time in the NF's existence, a fascist provocation is on the verge of succeeding in the objective sought for it by the state apparatus - the strengthening of police powers and repressive legislation It is for precisely these rewards that the state apparatus launched police riots in defence of fascists both at Red Lion Square and at Kingston Halls. Those in the labour movement who believe such attacks can be combated merely through anti-fascist propaganda, 'good' lawyers, and stiff-upper lip collections for fines, will continue to reap the whirlwind of Glasgow Sheriff Court. The campaign which is so urgently required in Glasgow today is one which organises the workers' movement for active sen-detence against the growth of the strong state' and for the destruction of the extreme right whose activities act as a "litmus test' for such moves Sheriff-Principal Wilson made clear early in me mal mat tor nim. the verdict was a foregone conclusion. He interrupted defendant Hugh Wyper's description of the mass picket tactic to state mar ne knew oute wen war a bicket was, and nad crossea one berore, he tnen instructed all lawyers in the case to cease reference to the mass picket as a picket. in mus summms up ne specuated on tr desirability of sending sôme defendants for a period of political education':
Whether the Glasgow labour movement can give Wilson the political educaton ne necas. whetner I chooses to be nammer or anvi, will be decided by the mobilisation to smash the Kingston Halls frame-up this month.
James MacAllister ... meanwhile in London Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, occupied last week by militants campaigning to save the lives of Garmendia and Otaegui