Media lawyers Carter-Ruck felt the wrath of Twitter users once again as a ‘flash mob’ descended on their Central London office yesterday.
The symbolically gagged protesters were opposing Carter Ruck‘s injuntion against the Guardian. Acting on behalf of commodity traders Trafigura, the lawyers had attempted to stop the press a reporting parliamentary question asking about an injunction banning publication of the Minton report which relates to the alleged dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast.
The injunction was partially lifted on Wednesday to allow reporting of the question after it was widely flouted by users of the Twitter social networking site.
Richard Wilson, 34, author of, Don’t Get Fooled Again, set-up a Tweetvite uring some of the Twitterers to make their protest in person at the Law firm’s offices.
Although only half of the promised 25 protesters turned up police were on hand in case of bigger crowds. The police stressed they were there to facilitate the demo and to ensure no obstruction was caused.
The small crowd was largely unnoticed until a car carrying a mobile stereo system added some entertainment to the proceedings. A group calling themselves the suburban pirates circled Carter Ruck’s offices, calling for greater freedom of speech over a PA system. Their vintage pick-up truck, emblazoned with a reggae flag was ignored by the police but it was discovered it had been stopped en route to the protest and allowed to continue.
A member of the web-based anti-Scientology group, Anon, said he felt that Carter Ruck’s injunction was symptomatic of the suppression of the media that has been used by companies and individuals to censor adverse publicity. He stressed he wasn’t a spokesman but feared reprisals, taking care to hide his face a mask from the film V for Vendetta.
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