[This article may also be read on our Facebook page]
A WORLD Wide Rally for Freedom is being held tomorrow (Saturday, March 20th) with some 50 nations across the globe taking part.
There are scheduled events taking place in London, Ireland and Scotland, although there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent one planned here in Wales.
The ‘One Day, Everyone Together’ event calls for personal liberties, sovereignty and human rights to be restored by governments world wide, and for lockdowns to end.
Amongst the other nations involved are South Africa, Iceland, Croatia, Finland, Greece, Canada, Latvia, Ukraine, Denmark and Belgium.
The organisers are hoping to harness the power of the internet and social media to raise awareness about the day and bring pressures to bear on their own governments and governments elsewhere as well.
Back home in Wales, it will be interesting to see how the issue of lockdowns and challenging lockdowns will actually play out at the Welsh Election in May.
First Minister Mark Drakeford will be hoping that society will have opened up some more by May 6th, and that he will be rewarded by the public for guiding the nation through the crisis.
But that view is likely to be seriously challenged by a growing public perception that lockdowns have actually created more more long term harms for society than the virus itself.
And that sense is going to be represented at the ballot box by two out and out anti-lockdown parties in the form of Propel and Cymru Sovereign.
Gwlad is taking a more nuanced, lockdown-sceptic position in general.
‘Whilst taking the virus seriously, we have a huge issue with how lockdowns have been imposed, with little or no democratic accountability at work’ said a spokesperson for Gwlad.
‘It’s also incredible that Welsh Labour still have not commissioned an impact assessment study to assess and monitor the consequences of lockdowns here’.
‘In Wales, we haven’t had a real, honest public debate about all the issues concerning this over the past year – but the election will finally allow that debate to take place, and we are looking forward to taking part in it.’
‘We’ll be combining our hard questions of the Welsh Government with some hard-headed and practical ideas how to get Wales’s economy and society moving again’.
It’s significant that human rights will figure so prominently in tomorrow’ s world wide rallies, as the UK Government’s controversial Policing Bill has now been delayed until June.
This is because of warnings raised that it could include several breaches of the Human Rights Act, in its sections on restricting the right to public protest.
Freedom is fast becoming one of the hot political issues of the day.