The right to protest is a hard-earned fundamental human right.

But one could be forgiven for believing it has now become an act of subversion and protesters have become dissidents in today's Britain.

I say this because of the ridiculous number of police and the overbearing and intrusive police filming of peaceful protesters at last Saturday's demonstration in Brighton against Israeli war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon.

Everyone, from babies to pensioners, was repeatedly filmed for two hours or more.

A stationary, open-top doubledecker tourist bus was temporarily used by the police to film demonstrators from above. What impression did this give to tourists and visitors to Brighton?

Such scenes would not be out of place in cold war Eastern Europe or some despotic regime - they demonstrate the attitudes we in the West are supposed to deplore. Police claims that such action is taken to protect the public and demonstrators ring hollow.

It is widely perceived as intimidation and an attempt to frighten people from exercising their democratic right to protest.

No doubt the police will be carefully sifting through their reels of film of law-abiding citizens and storing any new faces on their database in the interests of "state security".

Police filming demonstrators is a recent worrying development in Britain and a further extension of the "Big Brother" mentality. It must stop. It harms a healthy democracy by discouraging people from demonstrating.

The police must be held to account for their actions last Saturday and must explain why so many police were deployed at such unnecessary expense.

  • Linda Catt, Shepherds Croft, Brighton