ARRESTED & CHARGED McLibel Protester!

On the 21st June 08, as part of the anniver­sary of the now famous 1997 McLi­bel court case in which two cam­paign­ers were sued by the McDon­alds Cor­po­ra­tion for dis­trib­ut­ing a leaflet crit­i­cal of the com­pa­ny, cam­paign­ers entered the McDon­alds in Rose Cres­cent, Cam­bridge.

After being removed from the restau­rant by police a cam­paign­er was approached and his details request­ed. He gave his name and address but was told if he did not give his date of birth he would be arrest­ed under Sec­tion 5 of the Pub­lic Order Act. He refused, as he believes that a per­son is only required to give their name and address for the pur­pose of a sum­mons and no addi­tion­al details. He was sub­se­quent­ly arrest­ed under Sec­tion 5 of the Pub­lic Order Act. The arrest got pub­lic atten­tion with peo­ple mak­ing use of their cam­eras and com­ing up to take leaflets.

He has been charged and bailed to attend Cam­bridge Mag­is­trates – Narey – Court 613 – Mag­is­trates Court at 43 Haux­ton Road, Cam­bridge on the 3rd July at 9.30 a.m. – ANY SUPPORT APPRECIATED.

The pro­test­ers hoped to high­light the issues that orig­i­nal­ly com­prised the leaflet that led to the court case rang­ing from ani­mal farm­ing to envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion. Accord­ing to a cam­paign­er, “McDon­alds hasn’t real­ly changed. Whether it be the envi­ron­men­tal impact of ani­mal agri­cul­ture or the fact they con­tin­ue to mar­ket junk food to chil­dren in the mid­dle of an obe­si­ty prob­lem, McDon­alds still makes a lot of peo­ple very Mcan­gry.”

Many of the orig­i­nal leaflet’s crit­i­cisms of McDon­alds were vin­di­cat­ed in court. Accord­ing to the rul­ing of the High Court, Mcdon­alds had ‘exploit­ed chil­dren’, was ‘cul­pa­bly respon­si­ble for ani­mal cru­el­ty’ and used mar­ket­ing that had ‘pre­tend­ed to a pos­i­tive nutri­tion­al ben­e­fit which their food did not match’.

The cam­paign­ers are call­ing on the peo­ple of Cam­bridge to boy­cott the restau­rant chain. We can all make a state­ment about our val­ues by the way we spend our cash. We call on every­one to say no to this busi­ness in our city.

- You can learn more about the McLi­bel case at http://www.mcspotlight.org/

- An addi­tion­al video of the protest was tak­en by an inde­pen­dent cam­era man see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/401610.html (thanks!)

- Protester’s video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld3I4zVxc2A

COURT DATE:

Cam­bridge Mag­is­trates – Narey – Court 613 – Mag­is­trates Court at 43 Haux­ton Road, Cam­bridge on the 3rd July at 9.30 a.m.