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Saturday, We Demand Our Freedom Of Speech And Rejection Of ACTA. We Can Win This.

Activism  Headlines • by Rick Falkvinge 8416  20

This Saturday, on June 9, Europeans take to the streets again to drive a clear message home – telling the European Parliament to reject ACTA once and for all. The Internet has not forgotten, despite what lobbyists and corporate shills are hoping for. The Internet does not forget when corporations are trying to take away our freedom of speech.

As the citizens – the voters – we, the people – took to the streets this February and derailed the plans of just steamrolling ACTA into legislation, the politicians didn’t know what to do. The map of rallies back then, with February 11 as main rally day, was like nothing I’d seen. Nor, apparently, had the politicians and lobbies.

The corporate lobbies thought they could just get this passed uncontroversially, and it’s up to us to illustrate the controversy inherent in this abomination called ACTA, illustrate it to send the politicians a very clear message:

Selling our freedom of speech to a corporate bidder will always be controversial, and will risk costing you the thing you love most – your re-election.

Here’s Saturday’s rally map (all the rallies on the map are listed in text at the end of this article). I will be attending the Stockholm, Sweden rally. Which one is closest to you?

Make no mistake about it – this kind of continent-wide protest is felt deep into the halls of the European Parliament. This is an unmistakable rumbling earthquake that you notice as you stand still and listen for decision input. Frankly, this scares lobbyists. Also, it scares some politicians who thought corporations put them in office, and not voters. And it damn well should. Let’s send that message home this Saturday. All of us.

We demand our freedom of speech. We demand that corporations and lobbies do not get to determine what our net can be used for and not. We demand that politicians respect our fundamental rights and the net, or we’ll kick them out of office come re-election.

While the past votes in the European Parliament have gone our way, it is only due to us keeping up the pressure, and the margins have been slim. We need to show the world that we won’t give up the net and freedoms of speech without a fight.

Saturday, we win. Let’s make sure that this message echoes around the world: We will not be silenced!

List of rallies across Europe, per country

AUSTRIA

  • Graz, Mariahilferplatz, 13:00: Facebook event
  • Linz, 11:00, a rally bus from Postbusterminal to Hauptbahnhof, 15 EUR admission, see the Facebook event for details
  • Wien, Europaplatz/Christian-Broda-Platz, 14:00: Facebook event

BELGIUM

BULGARIA

  • Płowdiw, Пловдив площад Централен, 12:00: Facebook event
  • Sofia, Пилоните на НДК – София, 12:00: Facebook event

CROATIA

CZECH REPUBLIC

DENMARK

ESTONIA

FINLAND

FRANCE

GERMANY

GREECE

  • Athens, Πλατεία Συντάγματος, 19:00: More info
  • Thessaloniki, Λευκό Πύργο, 19:00: More info

HUNGARY

IRELAND

  • (No rallies in this list. Please supply Ireland’s list of rallies in the comments, and I’ll update here.)

ITALY

  • (No rallies in this list. Please supply Italy’s list of rallies in the comments, and I’ll update here.)

LATVIA

LITHUANIA

  • Vilnius, (data missing)

LUXEMBOURG

NETHERLANDS

POLAND

PORTUGAL

ROMANIA

SERBIA

SLOVAKIA

SPAIN

  • (No rallies in this list. Please supply Spain’s list of rallies in the comments, and I’ll update here.)

SWEDEN

SWITZERLAND

  • Basel, (link to facebook event in public list is broken – please update in comments)

UNITED KINGDOM

  • Birmingham, Victoria Square, 12:00: Facebook event
  • Bournemouth, (public event broken – details missing)
  • Bristol, (public event broken – details missing)
  • Cardiff, Cathays Park, 12:00: Facebook event
  • Chelmsford, see Facebook event for location, 12:00: Facebook event
  • Glasgow, City Chambers, 13:30: Facebook event
  • Liverpool, (public event broken – details missing)
  • London, Europe House, 12:00: Facebook event
  • Manchester, Picadilly Gardens, 12:00: Facebook event

Map credits: The events were initially read off the Google map maintained by Stopp-ACTA, retrieved Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Later, I changed the embedded map to this one maintained by NURPA, which appears to be the current master copy.

Rick Falkvinge

Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. He lives on Alexanderplatz in Berlin, Germany, roasts his own coffee, and as of right now (2019-2020) is taking a little break.

Discussion

  1. ACTA-manifestation på lördag klockan 14:00 « Emil Isberg

    […] Rick Falkvinge listar alla ACTA-demonstrationer i hela Europa. […]

  2. Tor

    Thanks for the list. Btw. if you click on Stockholm on the map there is no hyperlink. A link would be handy. Regarding the Swedish demonstrations have anyone tried to contact the youth organizations of the parties in the parliament? Last time around their leaders attended, but very few members as far as I could see (very little flag waving at least).

    1. Rick Falkvinge

      Not sure why that is – I don’t maintain the embedded map. In any case, you can find the link in the written-out collection of protests – which was quite some work to assemble, by the way, going through all the Facebook events…

  3. Wendy Cockcroft

    I’ve found the Manchester event: https://www.facebook.com/events/183572751753787/

    I also checked the organisers and the details. It’s legit.

    1. Rick Falkvinge

      If that’s the Manchester event then the Manchester event consists of going to London and joining those protests – that’s the London address and time?

    2. Rick Falkvinge

      Thanks, Wendy – the second link you sent me on Twitter (Picadilly gardens) was a Manchester address. Updated the list.

  4. Rick Falkvinge

    Added Athens, Thessaloniki, Toruń.

    1. a Greek Pirate

      As in Feb.11 demonstrations, the Pirate Party of Greece had to take action again, organise the demo & place Greece in the map, since no one else was doing it here!

      1. Henry Rouhivuori

        That’s exciting because of the election next week!

  5. André Wolski

    Unfortunately there is no event in Basel :/

  6. next_ghost

    Rick, you should have written this article at least a week earlier.

    1. Justus Römeth

      I disagree, today is exactly the right day for publishing this.

      1. Thierry

        I disagree, calling for protest 3 days prior to when it takes place is not really the best way to raise attention and help people to gather.

        (by the way, the embedded map is outdated, its description points to this one https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=214917285437566492834.0004bf01e005a41a2f7fa&msa=0&ll=51.096623,12.260742&spn=24.452056,67.631836 which seems to be up-to-date)

  7. Anonymous

    […] […]

  8. Jan-Olof

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IncXxj9BCZ4

  9. Pedro

    Going to the event now. Well, in about 20m, more or less. Going slowly, taking my time, trying to enjoy (as if) the the day which is sunny and reading some stuff along the way so that when people start to ask something i won’t be giving them ‘inaccurate’ information or something. Digital camera also comes with me.

  10. ACTA: What are they protesting for? | TechnoLlama

    […] to find a single one that actually mentioned anything specific about the text of the treaty. The most read and most widely shared article framed the debate as a question of freedom of speech, yet I am struggling to find any connection […]

  11. Helgens begivenheter | Anna Troberg

    […] demonstrerades mot ACTA och för nätfrihet i mer än hundra olika städer i Europa i lördags. Det är ett viktigt styrkebesked till de EU-parlamentariker som fortfarande tror att […]

  12. ACTA é rejeitado pelo Parlamento Europeu « A2K Brasil

    […] internacional para o comércio como o ACTA. Em junho deste ano, uma manifestação acertada entre mais de 24 países da União Europeia levou milhares de pessoas às ruas para pressionar os órgãos europeus. Fonte: galeria de European […]

  13. praca , praca na doma,

    Jaspravim.sk miesto kde sa ponúka práca a brigáda na doma do 100 Eur.
    Služby do 100 Eur pre Vašu firmu, domácnosť.

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