Sarah Wilkinson was brutally arrested and her home ransacked. Now she's under house arrest, prohibited from using phones or other devices, awaiting the possibility of further persecution under the extremely anti-democratic Section 12 of the 2000 Terrorism Act in England.
This is a song about how you can be brutally abducted and charged with ridiculous offenses right now in modern-day England, on those lovely old and occasionally still cobblestoned streets of London. Sarah is only one of a number of journalists and others to be charged under this outrageous law, by the New Labor government.
On the Streets of London
On the streets of London you just never know
Who might come knocking at your door in the early glow
As the sun is rising and you’re in the embrace
Of unidentified thugs with balaclavas on their faces
Ransacking your house and looting all your things
You never know what kind of terror the day brings
On the streets of London, you could get arrested any time
Having hurt no one by committing any crime
With handcuffs on your wrists until your fingers turn blue
Deprived of medication that you need in order to
Make it through the day without ending up dead
But if you died that would be fine, that’s what the cop said
On the streets of London they don’t need to show ID
They could be criminals or agents from some other country
They say they don’t need a warrant, they can just invade
And do whatever they want in their counter-terror raid
They can dump your mother’s ashes all over the floor
Put you in a cell and make sure you know the score
On the streets of London if you think you’re free to post
About the genocide that’s happening on the Mediterranean coast
They may hold you without trial under house arrest
And in this citadel of democracy, the mother of the west
They’re silencing celebrities and those who would speak out
Against the horrors that they’re trying to tell us all about
On the streets of London whether you obey
Determines whether you have the freedom to say
Anything that’s critical of the military men
Selling all the bombs that are killing all the children
Post about such things and you may hear
The judge sentence you to fourteen years
On the streets of London
This month in the midwest & northwest!
I fly today to Cincinnati where I’ll visit friends, rent a car, and drive to Michigan to visit other friends, and play at the gazebo in Ferndale! If it’s raining, we have the option of cramming into the living room.
There may be one or two more gigs to add to the late September/early October itinerary in the northwest that we could call a tour (even though it’s really just two weekends), but this is what’s for sure so far… Tickets available online for the Tumwater and Portland events, but no advance purchase needed for any of these shows.
New song: "On the Streets of London (Free Sarah Wilkinson)"