By email only

Matthew Varnham

Director Legal Observers

myemail@gmail.com Adrian Leppard Commissioner City of London Police theiremail@cityoflondon.police.uk CC. Michael Cogher, Comptroller and City Solicitor, Occupy London 7 September 2015 Dear Commissioner Leppard, Clarification and Apology regarding ‘Occupy London’ I write following the disclosure of information which shows Occupy London on a slide with images depicting the aftermath of terrorist attacks carried out by the IRA and Al-Qaida. The slide is part of a presentation targeted at nursery and school staff as part of the Project Fawn. Under the header ‘History in City of Terrorism and Domestic Issues’ it classes Occupy London as an example of Domestic Extremism. Your Community Engagement Update to the Police Committee dated 20th May 2015 classes Project Fawn as Counter Terrorism Work and part of the City of

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London’s engagement in the Government’s CONTEST Counter Terrorism Strategy. Your Update indicates the objective of Project Fawn is to assist in the assessment of risk “of pupils being drawn into terrorism, including support for the extremist ideas that are part of terrorist ideology.”

1 Pol 26/15 http://democracy.cityoflondon.gov.uk/documents/s50736/Pol_26-15_Police%20Committee%20Community%20Engagement%20Update%20Report%20May%202015.pdf

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Following the release of the slide through an FOIA Request made by the Guardian, a spokesman for the City of London Police released a statement. This statement was published by the Guardian in their coverage of the same, and is included;

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“The City of London police engages with a range of audiences on topics including crime, terrorism, personal safety and online protection in order to protect and educate people. The presentations are delivered alongside officers from community policing, as well as representatives from the City of London Corporation.” “A section of the presentation mentions protest groups. This is not an attempt to label them as terrorists, but an opportunity to discuss other policing issues that could affect educational establishments in the Square Mile.”

The Occupy Movement Occupy London established a tent city on public land besides St Paul’s Cathedral in October 2011 after being rebuffed from their intended location, Paternoster Square, by the Police. The encampment remained until the end of February 2012. During this time the protest camp attracted significant public and media interest. At it’s height, the movement had occupations in hundreds of cities across the world and was It brought people together, many of whom had no previous experience with protest, giving them a physical space to discuss their views on the causes and potential solutions to an economic and democratic crisis. In relation to the occupation, the High Court accepted “...the significance of the causes the defendants promote, [and] the sincerity and passion with which they are doing this.” identifying the issues the movement raise to include “the crisis –

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or perceived crisis – of capitalism, and of the banking industry, and the inability – or perceived inability – of traditional democratic institutions to cope with many of the world's most pressing problems. They encompass climate change, social and economic injustice, the iniquitous use of tax havens, the culpability of western governments in a number of conflicts, and many more issues besides. All of these topics, clearly, are of very great political importance.”

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There was no suggestion by the Court that the views expressed by the protesters extremist in nature, or that the protest itself presented a threat to national security. I believe the issues being discussed were of great interest to the protesters and of wider public interest more generally.

2 http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/19/occupy-london-counter-terrorism-presentation-al-qaida 3 Paragraph 155 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2012/34.html 4 Ibid.

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Implications of Domestic Extremism Classification - The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) The slide categorises the Occupy London protesters as an example of ‘domestic extremism.’ This follows similar categorisation of Occupy London as domestic extremists in the City of London Police December 2011 Terrorism/Extremism Update for the City of London Business Community.

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The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, part of GCHQ who work with the Police, work to monitor domestic extremists. JTRIG can be tasked by external organisations, such as the police, who are required to provide JTRIG with expected outcomes of an operation when tasking.

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The JTRIG work to “discredit, promote distrust, dissuade, deceive, disrupt, delay, deny, denigrate/degrade and deter.” Their focus on domestic extremists is

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through Human Intelligence with an extensive variety of tactics including the use of aliases and the denial of telephone and computer services.

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Resolution We live in a world where terrorism is a real and ever present threat. I do not seek to downplay the unenviable task you have of ensuring those who live, work and indeed protest within the City of London are kept safe. There is a difference, however, between those who wish to engage in acts of terror and those who wish to highlight it through peaceful protest. As a public body the City of London Police, alongside the City of London Corporation, have a duty to facilitate peaceful protest. It is a balancing act where the Police are expected to weigh up competing interests between those who have a right to express an opinion and those who are inconvenienced by that form of expression. I appreciate the balancing act is often challenging but, following the publication of CPS guidelines, it has been determined and reaffirmed by the Courts that peaceful protesters should be facilitated and not prosecuted. The

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recent swathe of acquittals for peaceful protest during the Occupy movement’s most recent iteration, Occupy Democracy, demonstrates this point.

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I note that the City of London Police held off clearing the Occupy London protest at the point it first established in 2011 instead deferring to the judgement of the

5 Appendix 1 6 Paragraph 1.11. http://www.statewatch.org/news/2015/jun/behavioural-science-support-for-jtrigs-effects.pdf 7 Ibid. Paragraph 2.3 8 Ibid. Paragraph 2.5 9 http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/public_protests/ 10 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/14/occupy-democracy-protester-donnachadh-mccarthy-assault-charge-dismissed

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Courts. In its judgement the Court reaffirmed the need for interference with the right to freedom of assembly and expression to be “rationally connected to one of the legitimate aims specified in Articles 10(2) and 11(2)” requiring it to be “convincingly demonstrated that… interference meets a pressing social need and is proportionate” concluding “action will not be proportionate unless it is the least intrusive means necessary to meet the aim… to apply a blanket policy will not normally be proportionate.” Crucially the Court required proportionality reviews to be “decided by the courts…. determined on the facts of the individual case.”

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It is greatly concerning that references to Occupy London within initiatives such as Project Fawn, in the context of the Government’s Counter Terrorism strategy and following developments in police dispersal powers, help propagate an impression of occupations and other forms of nonviolent direct action as unlawful and extremist in nature. You previously came under fire when the City Police included Occupy London in their December 2011 Terrorism/Extremism Update for the City of London Business Community. Following a letter to you by Dr Rizwaan Sabir your Office

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published on the Force website a response suggesting the inclusion of Occupy London on the Update was a mistake, going on to say “...it was never our intention to suggest that we view the Occupy Movement as being terrorist or extremist in nature…” I fear the comments made by a spokesman for the City of London police, where he suggests the mention of protest groups “...is not an attempt to label them as terrorists,” do not go far enough to address associations that are likely to be made by those who see the presentation. In this instance it does seem your intention to have Occupy London categorised as ‘extremists.’ In light of recent insights into the work of the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), I worry that your classification of the Occupy movement as ‘domestic extremists’ has meant they will have become targets of the JTRIG, perhaps through your tasking of GCHQ to monitor them. Through the City of London Corporation’s reclassification of Paternoster Square as a Walkway , and through dispersal powers afforded to your Inspectors through

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Section 35 Antisocial Behaviour, Crime & Policing Act 2014 , you have a variety 14

of ways to prevent Occupy-type protests from establishing in future. These developments inform the direction we seem to be going, with increasing intolerance towards such types of peaceful protest. It is with this in mind that I fear the City of London Police, if their classification of Occupy London as domestic

11 Paragraph 99 http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2012/34.html 12 Appendix 1 13 http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/police-get-new-power-to-clear-paternoster-square-of-protesters-with-no-order-from-court-9655850.html 14 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/12/part/3/enacted

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extremists is to do with putting them within the remit of JTRIG, are working to undermine legitimate and resolutely peaceful protesters from engaging in their right to protest. I have no doubt that this would be unlawful. For example, I am aware that telephone and computer disruption was faced by some of those involved in Occupy London in 2011/2012 during and after the time the protest was in situ at St Paul’s Churchyard. I ask that you;

1. Remove the image of Occupy London from the slide. 2. Publish an apology to Occupy London the City of London Police website. 3. Provide details of the criteria you use to categorise individuals / groups as

domestic extremists and give a definition of ‘domestic extremism.’ 4. Clarify whether the City of London Police have worked with the Joint Threat

Research Intelligence Unit, GCHQ more broadly or the Security Services (MI5) at any point in relation to the Occupy movement.

5. If the answer to Q4. is ‘yes,’ did the City of London Police ‘task’ JTRIG? 6. If the answer to Q5. is ‘yes,’ what did you specify as the expected outcome

of the operation? As a matter of courtesy, I would like to inform you that a copy of this letter along with your response, which I look forward to receiving, will be uploaded to the internet. Yours Sincerely

Matthew Varnham

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Appendix 1

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