Police have intervened across the country to censor 'On the Verge' an independent documentary about a campaign to shut down a Brighton weapons manufacturer. So far establishments in Southampton, Chichester and Bath and Oxford as well as Brighton have come under police pressure to cancel film showings. In Brighton police intervened to prevent a showing at the Duke of York's Cinema.

Staff at the Arthouse Community Cafe in Bedford Place, Southampton were approached at 11 a.m (Weds 19th March) by police accompanied by licensing officers. Threats were made concerning their licensing if the film, due to be shown on Thursday 20th was screened. Jani Franck director of the Community Cafe said “I grew up in South Africa and this feels awfully familiar. This has nothing to do with protecting the public this is nothing but censorship”

The National Identity Card issue may have dropped out of the news somewhat since the scheme became law in 2006, and reports of the exact state of the project may have become confused and distorted. However, the government’s plans to introduce the scheme are still alive. While Gordon Brown may have recently suggested he does not support compulsory ID cards for all, his government’s own activity shows that Whitehall is still determinedly laying out the foundations of the system.

A leaked government document recently confirmed what ministers have also stated, which is that foreign nationals will be required to hold an ID card this very year, such a transparently repressive measure it’s distressing to think a government thinks it will run. This will be followed next year by people in positions of trust – security guards, teachers and carers, for example – passport applicants by 2010, and young people by 2011. The signs are all that the proposed plan for cards to be issued to everyone else in 2012 is still on track, and whether they’re compulsory or not, the document talks of “various forms of coercion” to encourage people to cooperate, through employers, access to bank accounts, and applying for a first driving licence, to list a few examples.

So what do you do if you want to improve food on scale…say institution-wide…say at a University? The students Lydia Medland and Lauren Simpson last week released the investigative documentary Food for US, available on google videos and at the end of this article, because they wanted to open debate about the motorway-service station style food at Sussex University.

In response to the university’s own catering review they asked questions, and encouraged others to do the same. Do students need more ‘impulse food’ and meal deals? What will the university’s business plan review of catering mean for food itself? This, the crucial question, they felt was not answered in the review or the 15 minute question and answer sessions that followed the university’s presentation of its plans for the future of food on campus. The open presentations of the catering review had left the handful of students in attendance – mostly union officers - with questions, ideas and important contributions.

Before writing an article for brightonactivist.net, I felt compelled to look for the definition of ‘activism’ in Wikipedia, because I wasn’t entirely sure if Transition Brighton and Hove fell into this category. I tend to think of activism as things such as marches, publicity stunts, and lobbying the government. The Transition movement might get involved in things of this nature, but they’re certainly not our main focus, and even less the reason we are pulling our efforts together.

But in the third paragraph of Wikipedia I find a reassuring sentence: “In some cases, activism has nothing to do with protest or confrontation: for instance, some religious, feminist or vegetarian/vegan activists try to persuade people to change their behavior directly, rather than persuade governments to change laws.” That’s good news; we are definitely activists of this type.

So, what is it that we would like to change? Ideally, we would change the composition of the atmosphere so that climate change wouldn’t happen, and discover a new plentiful renewable energy source that was also practically free so that we don’t need to worry about the depletion of oil, gas, or any type of fossil fuel. Considering that neither of these things seems very likely in the foreseeable future, we will settle for second or third best.

The background to this year's National Climate March was one of two simultaneous trends. One is the increasingly ominous nature of the threat as evidenced by a steady stream of reports from around the world of the mounting effects of climate change over the past year. These reports are no more worrying than than the news that this year's minimum arctic sea ice extent set a new record low in what looks suspiciously like an acceleration of the previous linear trend. The possibility exists we may have already reach our first "tipping point" and the arctic ice cap may largely disappear within the next decade.

The other (equally ominous) trend is that of the government (and in fact most governments around the world) to make a lot of noise about climate change while using it as an excuse to implement policies that as best they know will not work (e.g. carbon trading) and at worst are going to make the problem a whole lot worse (e.g. biofuels). This has been put into stark relief by the news that venture capital funding for private security companies has surged ahead of green energy in the last year. The market clearly feels that there is more money to be made from protecting the rich from the problem than in actually trying to fix it.

As part of its Stop Homophobia in Poland campaign supporters of the British Youth Council (BYC) marched at Saturday’s Brighton Pride. BYC hoped that the march would further highlight the plight of the LGBT community in Poland and encourage a public response from the UK government. The campaign brought a political spirit back to the parade and was warmly received by bystanders. Over 1000 stickers were handed out and 100 letters were collected which will be sent to the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown requesting that he publicly denounces the human rights abuses carried out by the Polish government.

BYC has participated in several events and marches since the beginning of the campaign in January 2007. BYC spokesperson Lloyd Russell-Moyle (20) said “We’ve so far had a great deal of support from the public and politicians and have recieved assurances from the UK government and the European Commission that they’re keeping a close eye on what’s happening in Poland and considering their response.”

The last few years have seen an erosion of the human rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-sexual community in Poland. Throughout 2005 and 2006 the homosexual community in Poland has been subject to vehement discrimination including homophobic outbursts by high profile politicians, the banning of Gay pride events and a recent proposal of legislation which will ban discussion of homosexuality in schools and educational institutions.

In an internal professional misconduct investigation, led by the Assistant Chief Constable, Sussex Police have concluded that allegations against a local peace group contained in a letter from Chief Superintendent Kevin Moore published in The Argus last year were inaccurate but have controversially rejected the other complaints made against them.

The complaints, investigated internally by the police, were that 1) a letter published by the Argus on 26th August 2006 from Chief Superintendent Kevin Moore brought discredit upon the peace movement by branding them racist and anti-semitic and accused the march organisers of deliberately provoking and inciting the Jewish community in Brighton and 2) the same letter contained inaccurate information about the notice given for another earlier march and an alleged assault on a Jewish man during this march.

The investigation concluded that the letter did indeed contain inaccurate information concerning the notice given to the police by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) before the first march but unfortunately none of the other complaints were accepted.

We reclaimed our own campus from the hands of authority and stuck two fingers up, with a typically rebellious student attitude, to the bureaucracy and institutions that suppressed our actions.

Although it is of course typical for an activist to disregard authorities that attempt to intimidate them under fear, Tent State was different. It was not obsessed with making those who opposed it unhappy by continuing the event but aiming to benefit students; speaking as an organiser I can confirm this.

After starting to organise Tent State in February 2007 our belief in the project increased and so did our enthusiasm. But what were we actually doing? Tent State is an education festival that started at Rutgers University in 2003 in remembrance of the students who were shot by authorities at Kent State University for protesting against the Vietnam War. Tent State has been adopted by a number of universities across the United States; we are the first to do it in the UK.

Community Base's event for refugee week in June 2007 saw over 90 refugees, grassroots activists, professionals working with refugees and students come together for a lively discussion lasting two hours.

One issue that came up was how desirable 'integration' of communities is. Community Base had described the event as 'an open discussion about how refugees are supported in Brighton and Hove and how we could do more to integrate them into our community' and one young person involved in the discussion made the quite reasonable point that he did not want to become part of a culture of lager louts.