• Tell Northern Rail they can't Silence the Press
    On Monday 23rd June, a peaceful protest by members of Sheffield Disabled People Against The Cuts and Barnsley Retirees Action Group was broken up by British Transport police. The protesters were taking part in the Freedom Ride, a long-running protest against cuts to free travel provision in South Yorkshire. Witnesses report that the police used heavy handed tactics. One witness, Jen Dunstan, of Sheffield Disabled People Against the Cuts, said: “Dozens of elderly and disabled people have been left with bruising. Some have cuts where their skin has broken from being pushed and shoved. “A placid and calm gentleman was roughly manhandled. I am angry and shocked. The police are meant to protect elderly people.” A journalist from the Sheffield Star was present, and tried to video events on his phone. He was ordered to erase footage he’d recorded on his phone because he did not have permission to film on private property inside Sheffield station. When he initially resisted the request and continued to film, he says he was told he could be arrested under terror laws. A statement from Northern Rail said: “Members of the media must have written permission from the train operator which manages the station before undertaking any filming on station property. Under no circumstances are Northern Rail employees to be filmed without prior agreement from the Northern Rail press office.” Fortunately, other witnesses were able to video the behaviour of the police on Northern Rail's property. The treatment of the elderly gentleman can be seen here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svv9YcyZ6Os&list=UUiZU8ySSrpSg-qhR3BsYSSQ Many people who view this video will think that this treatment is disproportionate for an old man accused of fare-dodging, especially when he is taking part in a legitimate peaceful protest. In the video, five burly police officers are pinning the elderly gentleman down so that he cannot move, despite no visible signs of protest or resistance from him. It is not within the rights of Northern Rail, or any other organisation, to try to ban filming on their premises, when that filming clearly shows a questionable activity taking place with the collusion of that organisation. It is anti-democratic to try to silence the press in this way. Please sign this petition to force Northern Rail to retract their statement, and issue an apology that recognises the right of journalists and the public to film wherever they wish when a breach of a person's rights is taking place.
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    Created by Murray Cowell
  • Prawn Slavery
    Are we human or are we not? How can anyone be willing to consume any product generated with the use of slave labour.
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    Created by Mike Powell
  • 'Innocent' yet already in print!
    If you were accused of something terrible and degrading that you had not done, and your details together with these allegations appeared on the front page of your local newspaper, for example, then can you imagine the damage caused to you alone? You as a son or daughter, an employer or employee, parent, a sister or brother, a friend, minister, you as a celebrity,... let alone others too like your children, friends and family and associates. Can you see how that would quite easily stain your life having a profound and long lasting impact that could not be erased!? Yes, this regularly happens to innocent people like you and me before any opportunity to a fair hearing or trial and by mistake. The permanent damage based on alleged guilt is unfair and unjustified! It’s done just so that newspapers can have something to print, 'a juicy story', scare tactics or for greed. Sign this petition to reduce the media's powers to invade your privacy, devastate and ruin lives by being able to print allegations with personal details. I had not given it too much consideration until it happened to me and my family. Anonymity is the only fair way for the innocent.
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    Created by Samantha Shaw
  • No Homeless Spikes
    There has been a 37% rise in the amount of people sleeping rough since your government took power; 50000 families were accepted as homeless by their local authority in 2012/13 and the average life expectancy of a homeless person is 47. These statistics sicken us. Show us you feel the same by outlawing these new deterrents to homeless people finding somewhere to sleep when they have nowhere else to go. We do not believe the removal of these spikes will stop homelessness, anymore than their installation will stop homelessness, but it may convince us that you and your government are not anti-homeless people.
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    Created by Shaun Byrne
  • Secret terrorists trials. Don't let them become a daily reality.
    I'm very concerned about the precedent that secret trials could lead to. The CIA are very heavily involved with British legal system strongly advising what information can be made public or not. The CIA are not an elected representative of the British public. They have just used there vast influence to tell the British Government how to conduct them selves. Then what will happen next? If you are convicted of a terrorist crime you will be denied access to all the evidence that is held against you. If you can afford to have a solicitor Legal aid is being savagely cut Your fair trial will not be in public. People who support you family and friends might not be allowed to follow the legal presidia. What the public is not aware of is that White Anglo Saxon Protestants will be put on trial as well. And this is only the beginning.Once the precedence has been set, It will become common for other serious crimes to be herd in secret.Murder, and Rape ; trials for stop and search, . Many people believe that as Law abiding Citizen's they will never experience the living horror of a secret trial. Please do not assume anything, all it takes is one nasty person making a nasty telephone call.
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    Created by Ruth Kosminsky
  • Repeal of Employment Tribunal Fees
    The introduction of fees into the Employment Tribunal system has reduced the access to justice of many deserving people. The large reduction in claims, as shown by official statistics, is not mainly, as suggested, the elimination of ‘vexatious’ litigation but rather the actual prevention of access to justice of vulnerable persons. In a civilised society this is simply unacceptable and must stop at once. It is against ‘natural justice’. We ask that this divisive decision be reversed by removing fees, thus restoring traditional ‘fair play’ into the tribunal system.
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    Created by Lyn Berry
  • Give power to the police to deal with noise polution on the spot
    As someone who has had to put up with noise I have been horrified by the apathy of the authorities. despite being able to hear noise from a household that was not my direct neighbor the police could not act. If you contact the council department responsible for dealing with the problem you find that you have to make a formal complaint during normal working hours which means that the culprits are notified of YOUR complaint even before the local authority bothers to collect evidence which they will then want to do. A much simpler solution is that the police are called and that they witness and deal with the problem on the spot and perhaps leave until later a return to the property to confiscate equipment used to make excessive noise. In every neighborhood there are people who have to go to work and it is unacceptable that they should have to put up with excessive noise. I personally have witnessed where a noise complaint has been made it has resulted in retaliation from the perpetrators in the form of damage to property resulting in £1000's of damage done and the victim has had to move with the police unwilling or unable to intervene and the local authority uninterested and other neighbors too worried of retaliation to offer supporting evidence. Many people do not report noise problems and suffer in silence because they FEAR retaliation which is a highly realistic risk.
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    Created by Simon Turner
  • End discrimination of tenants renting in the private sector
    People in receipt of full or part housing benefit should not be demonised and should be allowed the same opportunities to find a home as anyone else. This affects the disabled, carers, parents and carers of disabled children, lone parents, students, asylum seekers and refugees. Ending discrimination in all it's forms is important to the progress of modern society.
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    Created by Katie Taylor
  • Allow E CIGS
    The health department wanted to ban cigerettes, and have done so, and now people have turned to ECigs, which are a lot safer. So lets do more to raise awareness that these do not harm people around anyone using these. Maybe start to call it Vaping rather than smoking might also help. It seems that the Government are trying to rule people's lives by stopping things that they enjoy. I am neither a smoker or a Ecig user, but I do feel that people who use them get bullied, and feel strongling about the way the users of both are treated. The number of people who use electronic cigarettes in the UK has tripled over the past two years to 2.1 million, a health charity estimates. It says just over half of current or ex-smokers have now tried electronic cigarettes, compared with 8% in 2010. Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) surveyed more than 12,000 adult smokers. A separate study found that most e-cigarette users were using them to reduce smoking. Use of e-cigarettes among people who have never smoked remains small at 1%, Ash said. Ash has commissioned a series of surveys on electronic cigarette use since 2010, with the latest survey conducted in March. Continue reading the main story "Smokers are increasingly turning to these devices to help them cut down or quit smoking” Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) Of those now estimated to be using electronic cigarettes, around 700,000 are thought to be ex-smokers and 1.3 million to be using them alongside normal cigarettes or tobacco. Current smokers using the cigarettes regularly have risen from 2.7% in 2010 to 17.7% in 2014. When ex-smokers were asked why they used electronic cigarettes, 71% said they wanted help giving up smoking. Among smokers, 48% said wanted to reduce the amount of tobacco they smoked and 37% said they used e-cigarettes to save money. Smoking rate fall Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash, said: "The dramatic rise in use of electronic cigarettes over the past four years suggests that smokers are increasingly turning to these devices to help them cut down or quit smoking. Significantly, usage among non-smokers remains negligible." Another study, The Smoking Toolkit Study, which covers England, has found that electronic cigarettes are overtaking the use of nicotine products such as patches and gum as an aid to quitting smoking. It also found that the proportion of smokers who gave up smoking in the past year had increased and smoking rates in England were continuing to fall. Study leader Prof Robert West said: "Despite claims that use of electronic cigarettes risks renormalising smoking, we found no evidence to support this view. "On the contrary, electronic cigarettes may be helping to reduce smoking as more people use them as an aid to quitting." Ms Arnott added: "While it is important to control the advertising of electronic cigarettes to make sure children and non-smokers are not being targeted, there is no evidence from our research that e-cigarettes are acting as a gateway into smoking." Ash's survey suggests that most electronic cigarettes users, or "vapers", use a rechargeable product with replaceable cartridges or a reservoir. Simon Clark, director of Forest, a group that supports smokers, said it welcomed the rise of e-cigarettes and was glad people had a choice of what to smoke. But he suggested that most smokers using e-cigarettes were experimenting with them rather than using them to give up smoking altogether. "We haven't seen a significant fall in smokers. Most smokers still find electronic cigarettes quite basic and it will take a few more years for the technology to improve."
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    Created by mary Tunley
  • Allow David and Cindy Pountney home to care for their sick parents
    It is very important that they are allowed to come home.
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    Created by Ann Beddow
  • End endemic racism in the media, film, tv, theatre & fashion industry
    BME people are significantly under represented in all forms of media, even though 1 in 6 people are of an ethnic minority in the UK. The endemic racism that exists in the TV, fashion, film, theatre, media & advertising sectors has been tolerated for too long & things have to change. Please sign this petition to ask the media & creative industry to stamp out racism & rethink its use & portrayal of BME people!
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    Created by Jessie Jacobs
  • National service - a very bad idea
    National service "conscription" was introduced leading up to WWII and was abolished 15 years after WWII for good reason. It did more harm than good to those who were forced into a minimum of 2 years service. For many it would have been easier to spend 2 years in prison but then they would still have had to do the term of service after. Many got out by faking long term illness, or by suicide but the rest had to get on with it. Those who endured the grueling 2 years of service and survived the regime mentally unscarred were few if any and a generation were brought up by the men who endured their time in service. It has a long lasting and generational effect on society. where cruelty is a tool for training those in service like electric shocks on a lab rat. A reintroduction of National service "conscription", serves for cheap labour for what ever means the government of the day sees fit and with those having to serve, forced to do what ever training the controllers set. There is no benefit for the individual to serve a term of service and no long term benefit for society. although those presenting the bill will disagree it is something that is so abhorrent to any critical thinking free person that someone should be enslaved for a period of time for what ever reason. if you are reading this on face book please sign
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    Created by nikki mitchell