What do we want . . .

I am in rant mode. I have been since the weekend and have had to wait until I calmed down a bit. So what or rather who has got my gander up? Arise Mr Phil Woolas, Immigration Minister, who has effectively declared that demonstrating is anti-social behaviour, and any applicant for British citizenship who has the temerity to protest should have points docked from their points-based application. As someone who has spent a large part of her life on marches, pickets and handing out leaflets and who came to this country as an asylum seeker I am, to say the least, upset. I definitely wouldn't have passed the Woolas test - I protested against apartheid and BNP and for peace. Under his criteria I am an undesirable. But he is wrong. The right to demonstrate peacefully, to express your views, to protest it is a mark of a free and democratic society. We commend the people of Iran and Zimbabwe for demonstrating against stolen elections. We hold up as an example of bravery and vision the March on Washington at which Dr Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I have a dream speech". The lone protestor standing before a tank in Tiananmen Square is one of the defining images of our time. Democracies should encourage active citizenship - the freedom to express a view, to communicate an opinion is one important way we can be active and engaged members of society.