Europe's Anti-Acta Day of Action: London, Glasgow and Nottingham Protests Confirmed

A part of the wider Anti-Acta movement, within the UK protests have been confirmed in London Glasgow and Nottingham.

Following on from the high profile anti-Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) demonstrations in Poland, numerous activist groups called for a similar, united response across all European territories. The call to arms was subsequently repeated by more groups, each pledging to participate in a united campaign on 11 February.

Within the UK, protests are currently planned in London, Nottingham and Glasgow. Though official numbers are scarce, according to the list of confirmed participants on each protests' Facebook page, only the London action will see more than a thousand take part.

Set to occur in central London outside the British Music House at 2:00pm, the protest promises to be a non-violent demonstration. The organisers' main page listed the action's primary goal as to inform the general public of Acta and its implications regarding online freedoms.

"The official ACTA protest will take place at 2pm outside UK Music (W1T 3LR). If possible, please encourage fellow Amnesty protesters to join us on our rally. The plan is that we will have one big meeting outside this point," read the statement.

"We will station here for a static event for 2 hours. We will then distribute leaflets to smaller groups of around 5 people and we will scatter around Oxford Street to hand these leaflets out.

"Our aim is to raise as much awareness about ACTA as possible, and the most effective way is to spread out rather than stay in a large group."

The group later clarified that the UK Metropolitan Police have been made aware of the protest. When asked about the anti-Acta action a police spokesman confirmed, "we will have an appropriate police presence in place".

Acta is a controversial trade agreement that came under fire after numerous groups such as Anonymous and Stop Acta mounted public campaigns claiming the agreement would allow corporations to censor the internet.

Designed to harmonise copyright enforcement across all participating countries, the agreement is currently being negotiated by the numerous countries and powers including the European Union, the United States, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Morocco and Singapore.

As of 25 January, in the EU Acta is only missing the signatures of Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia. The final decision regarding whether Acta will become EU law will rest with the European Parliament, which is set to vote on Acta in June.

A full version of the final version of Acta can be read here.