In the run up to Christmas last year, in scenes more appropriate to an episode of CSI: Miami than a long running investigation into a civil case in Scotland, Lothian and Borders police swooped on Scotland’s most famous political activist as he left his place of work.

Tommy Sheridan has now been charged with perjury, following from the most expensive and unprecedented perjury investigation ever in Scotland. This investigation, instigated by the Scottish Crown Office, was ordered
following Tommy Sheridan’s defamation victory over Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World in July 2006. The same Crown Office will now decide whether a criminal trial takes place.

Tommy Sheridan was arrested and held for 8 hours for questioning in Edinburgh on Sunday, 16th December. At the same time nine police officers descended on Tommy and Gail Sheridan’s house in Glasgow and detained Gail for 8 hours, who was alone with her two year old daughter, while the police searched the house.

The press of course were tipped –off about this stage-managed raid – an action that has earned the police condemnation from many quarters for their intimidation and heavy-handed methods. As Tommy Sheridan commented: “ I am being treated as if I am a murderer". The unprecedented usurping of police resources to carry out this campaign have exposed the lengths that the Murdoch media empire, sections of the legal establishment in Scotland and the police are prepared to go to try and target Tommy Sheridan. Within days friends and supporters
of Tommy Sheridan across the political spectrum and from across society, from within and without Scotland, came together to launch the Defend Tommy Sheridan campaign.

This broad based, non-party political campaign has been launched to build support not only for Tommy Sheridan – but for the right not to be silenced and to be able to speak out against war, injustice, inequality and poverty wherever it exists.

massive resources
A colossal £500,000 of public money has been spent so far on the police enquiry by a force that had last year the worst rate for successful prosecutions of alleged rape of any police force in Scotland.

Thousands of hours of police time have been diverted to this case. As a jury decide by a clear majority in Tommy’s favour against the Murdoch Press after hearing six weeks of detailed evidence, the public may well be entitled to ask - for what purpose?

Moreover, it is unprecedented in Scottish legal history for a civil defamation case to be followed by a criminal investigation into possible perjury having being committed. As the BBC Scotland solicitor Alistair Bonnington underlined on Newsnight Scotland on Monday 17th December: “lies are told every day and in every case in courts across Scotland. What happens about that? Absolutely nothing. Just because this case involved a politician and a
newspaper is not a reasonable basis at all to proceed with a perjury investigation. For Scotland this sets a precedent.”

anti-poll tax leader
Tommy Sheridan has been the foremost figure in the Scottish socialist movement for nearly two decades. He was the leader of the anti-poll tax movement that defeated the Tory government in the early 1990’s and in the process ended the career of Margaret Thatcher. He served a four-month jail sentence during that campaign and was
elected from his prison cell to Glasgow City Council in 1992. Tommy was elected as a socialist living on the average wage of a worker to the Scottish parliament in 1999. His uncompromising stand against poverty, injustice,
racism and as a fighter for ordinary working people earned the hatred of the right-wing press and the big business establishment.

It was this that made him the target of the Murdoch media-empire whose stable of papers include the Sun and the News of the World. Papers who have a long record of attacking workers, trade unionists, asylum seekers and socialists – and anyone else who doesn’t square with their divisive and reactionary agenda.

vendetta
Murdoch’s vendetta against Tommy Sheridan is part of a campaign to destroy any opposition to the billionaires
and the system that the Murdoch’s of this world seek to defend at all costs. This vendetta has increased in intensity and desperation following the defamation victory that Tommy Sheridan scored against Murdoch's paper the News of the World in 2006. The new possibility of a perjury trial is a nothing but continuation of this witch-hunt by the Murdoch empire.

We appeal to you to add your voice to those speaking out in defence of Tommy Sheridan; be one of many who are willing to stand up against the Murdoch vendetta. To demand an end to the shocking waste of public resources being used to prosecute this witch-hunt. For the right not to be silenced by the rich and powerful.

www.defendtommysheridan.org