Police warn autistic hackers to stay at home

London's Metropolitan Police had advised autistic supporters of Gary McKinnon to stay away from a demonstration outside the US embassy last week. Police would not be able to vouch for the safety of autistic protesters, they told organisers.

Police had been filmed beating and bloodying people with battons in the City of London the day before, where 20,000 people gathered to protest against wealth inequality on the opening day of the G20 summit.

Wilson Sharp, Gary's step-Dad, told the INQ he had spoken with the MET Police events department team the night before the protest.

"The police said, 'my advice is for everybody not to come because of the trouble from yesterday. Especially for people with autism who don't like crowds and don't like to be touched. It would be a very bad idea for them to come'," said Sharp, adding, "He said, 'there's no police to protect autistic people, and I don't advise anyone to come'."

Since Gary, who is fighting an extradition order to face hacking charges before a US court, was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome last summer, he has become a test case and cause célèbre for autistic rights campaigners. So the protest was timed to coincide with World Autism Awareness Day, on 2 April, and the Free Gary camp was expecting a larger than usual turnout of autistic protesters at their demo.

Sharp said that following police advice he had advised autistic groups against attending the demonstration. Police had told him that all their resources were busy protecting with the G20 summit. They told him they expected the G20 protests to converge on the US embassy in London's Grosvenor Square the next day. They told Sharp they couldn't spare the resources to protect Aspergic people from rioters.

A MET spokeswoman admitted in a written statement that officers had advised against Sharp against holding the demo: "Following a risk assessment, officers advised against this for safety of those demonstrators concerned," it said. But the spokeswoman would not be drawn further on whether autistic people in particular were advised against attending the demonstration, nor on why they might need, or indeed expect, police protection.

"It was on the basis of those we were told were likely to attend," she said. "That's all we are saying. It was on the grounds of safety. We do a risk assessment". This referred "not only to autistic people," she said.

Anarchists abscond
Just seven people attended Gary's demonstration, including his Mum and step-Dad. London's protest movement, hung-over after the G20 carnival, and already sagging under under the weight of good living, didn't manage a single body in support. Gary McKinnon is still but an armchair cause célèbre for anti-neo-imperialists.

Serious questions need to be asked in McKinnon's name at anarchist HQ. Here is a man who stuck his neck out for the anti-war movement, leaving a cyber-protest message on US military computer systems that landed him with an extradition order and a threatened 70 years in a US jail. Where were his compadres when he needed them at the US embassy demo?

Probably too crustily cool to attend what was billed as a 'sing-in' for Gary McKinnon, which had a full gospel choir on a promise. The choir backed out after the police warning. The sing-in was nevertheless pulled off with gusto by McKinnon's small band of supporters.

They sang in the tune of the Graham Nash song Chicago, to the recorded accompaniment of Janis, Gary's Mum, and James Litherland, a musician who turned up on the day as well with his guitar, and who has sung with the likes of Leo Sayer. Gary's family have music connections, which via Pink Floyd's David Gilmour had got them permission to use Nash's song. The sing-in was therefore a natural development for them, though it would have been hard to find the inclination to sing outside the US embassy had Bush and not Obama been in town.

Obama effect
The Obama effect had infected the Free Gary protest as it has much else. Gary's supporters were full of more hope than the rage they showed at previous demonstrations. Gary's Mum Janis had written to Obama for support in January. She was here to ask him again.

"Welcome Obama!" Janis shouted up at the embassy during the bridge of the protest song. "Welcome Obama! We can change the world! Free Gary! Welcome Obama! Justice for all! Free Gary!"

And then into the uplifting refrain of the the song, harmonies provided by a gospel choir on the recording: "We can change the world! Rearrange the world!"

Nash's lyrics had been rewritten as a plea for mercy from Obama. The family has had the spectre of the "War on Terror" prosecutors hanging over them for the last seven years. Their sing-in made waiting on Obama seem like waiting on Aslan. It would not have been out of place had they lit a camp fire on Grosvenor Square and sung Kumbayah.

Obama, say many pundits now, is being grounded by the inconvenient reality of realpolitic. He has nevertheless changed the world, like someone turned the light on in the ghost house at the fun fair. Many of the Washington ghouls turned into cardboard cut-outs. But Aslan's still got his work cut out.

"Won't you please come from Chicago, show your face... won't you please come down to London, no-one else can take your place. You can change the world...," they sang to Obama.

"I hope Obama gets to hear about this," Janis said afterwards. She had not had a reply to her letter. "I was hopeful he would see it. I still believe in Obama. He was a human rights lawyer. His wife was a photographer for Rolling Stone. They are well-grounded people. It's just difficult to know whether he would hear about it. I was just hoping maybe he would hear, and give Gary and our lives back." µ