"Every Fan has a part to play, Please sign the Petition in opposing the new Bill"

[Joe O'Rourke]

[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]The first meeting of a new group “Fans Against Criminalisation” met for the first time in our club on Tuesday night; all the major groups were represented; as well as the Association; there were; the Affiliation; the Trust; the Green Brigade; the Irish Association; and the North American Federation.[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]The meeting was called to look at ways of escalating the campaign against the proposed new legislation regarding offensive behaviour at football matches in Scotland. All of the groups agree that the new Bill is completely unnecessary and needs to be opposed.[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]The Green Brigade have started the campaign brilliantly with their visual and vocal protest at the Inverness match; in the second half in particular it appeared that the vast majority of those present agreed with the protest.[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]There is lots more to come in the next few weeks; but I’ll say more about that at the appropriate time; in the meantime it’s all about rallying the support behind the banner; or should that be banners?[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]The message must be sent to Alex Salmond and his Government; that this new Bill will only serve to criminalise ordinary Celtic supporters; and we will not stand back and let that happen.[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]Every Celtic fan has a part to play in the campaign; there is much that can be done; even from the comfort of your own home. The first thing you can do is contact your local MSP; irrespective of which party they are a member of; and especially if you live in a marginal seat; with a small majority; demand that they vote against the Bill.[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]The is every chance that the Government will have a problem getting some of their MSP’s to support the Bill; it has been well documented that the only real support they have is from the Police; everyone else, from Academics to the Churches are opposed to it.[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]It will be interesting to see how the Celtic Board will handle it at the AGM tomorrow; in their submission to the Justice Committee they openly criticised the Bill; let’s hope they will openly oppose its implementation.[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]The atmosphere at the last couple of home matches has been fantastic; the rest of the stadium responding to the prompting of the Green Brigades chants has been exceptional; it has shown a unification of the support which has been missing for many years now.[COLOR=#000000:2c587c62]As I have said earlier; there is a lot more to come in terms of protest. What I ask you to do now is quite simple; please sign the petition on the home page of the site; then get all your family and friends to sign as well; the more signatures we accrue; the stronger the message sent to the Politicians.

[Guest]

what has scottish law got to do with americans, the snp will ignore their part in the petition as well as the irish

[Guest]

If you read the Justice Committe's first report you will see that they wish to have the power to arrest those outside of Scotland in relation to travelling to a televised broadcast of the match and the online communication parts. This means they hope Scottish police will have the power to travel abroad to get "offenders" as long as the offence relates to a Scottish football match.

[John Andrews]

Their is a big Irish support who travel every week to support Celtic,also their are a lot of expat's from Canada and America who come over four or five time's a year,so the Bill will affect them like any other fan.

[irish eyes]

The great problem here is something that is inbred and not just centered around football. There are existing laws that can deal with sectarianism but the problem is they are not being used. Some of these new proposals are just totally crazy it's beyond belief.