The New Economics Foundation launches Code of Protest for Genoa

12th July, 2001.

The London-based New Economics Foundation (NEF), which has the longest record of organising parallel events at G7 Summits, today launched a Code of Conduct for protesters attending the Genoa Summit. The Code of Protest is being circulated across the internet to campaigners worldwide, and NEF hopes that it will re-inject the language of peace and non-violence into the forthcoming Genoa Summit.

Ed Mayo, director of NEF, and long time organiser of TOES (The Other Economic Summit) said: "We hope to sign up more than 1000 NGOs to this code of conduct, and by that means to marginalise those who tacitly or explicitly endorse or encourage violent conduct.

"Violence at these events blocks out political space for dialogue. Most tragically it demobilises tens of thousands of people who feel as we do about the injustice of globalisation, but who are put off protesting by the threat of violence. In Birmingham in 1998, the Jubilee 2000 Coalition mobilised 70,000 people in a peaceful protest - it is vital that we keep those people on our side. We can only do that by speaking and acting peacefully ".

Organisations wishing to sign up to the Code of Protest should write endorsing the code, to codeofprotest@neweconomics.org

Code of Protest

We recognise that violence, in the form of poverty and exclusion, the denial of human rights and environmental destruction, is a daily experience for millions of people around the world that are losing out from globalisation.

To resist and counter this, we assert our democratic rights of free speech and free assembly, to express opposition, to challenge the dominant economic orthodoxy, to promote peace and to create alternative futures. These are freedoms that are routinely and increasingly denied across the world.
Nevertheless, so that our actions are consistent with our dreams, we choose to exercise these rights in the context of the following commitments;

1. setting our actions within a framework of non-violence at all times.
2. making available at any event, campaign actions, guidance or training for non-violent protest and the defusion of violence by others.
3. using non-violent language, taking ownership for what we say in public and not aiming to inflame situations of protest or demonstration.
4. remaining curious about perspectives other than our own, recognising that truth is our greatest asset.
5. focusing as far as possible on creative action, showing what we are for as well as what we protest against.

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