A campaign to get justice for anti-fascists arrested on a demonstration in Bolton will be launched at a meeting in the House of Commons on Tuesday 8 June, with speakers including MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Peter Hain.

The launch meeting of the justice4bolton campaign takes place at 6pm in Room P, Portcullis House, Bridge Street London, SW1A 2LW.

The campaign is calling for charges against anti-fascists who demonstrated in Bolton against the racist English Defence League to be dropped.

Charges

Anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigners are facing serious criminal charges after they were arrested on the 20 March demonstration against the EDL – an organisation with links to the fascist British National Party that is violently islamophobic (racist against Muslims).

Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, and Rhetta Moran, joint secretary of Greater Manchester UAF are among those facing potential charges that include “conspiracy to incite violent disorder”.

Such charges carry a lengthy prison sentence, and campaigners believe this use of conspiracy laws threatens not only to delegitamise protests against the rise of fascism, but could curtail the right to any public protest.