200 Anti Tax Haven Protesters Due In Jersey This Saturday

by Jeremy Hetherington-Gore, Tax-News.com, London

07 June 2001

ATTAC, Paris-based ally of the OECD in the fight against tax havens, is continuing with its plans to mount a series of demonstrations in European 'offshore' locations this summer, beginning on Saturday 9th June, when 200 of its adherents (anti-globalisation fighters) will descend on Jersey. It was going to send 400, but the Jersey authorities have convinced ATTAC to reduce the scale of the invasion and the remaining protesters will demonstrate in St Malo instead, which is not a tax haven as far as is known.

The Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens (ATTAC) was founded in France, and has branches around the world. It has declared Saturday the start of "haven-hunting season", and plans to protest about the role played by tax haven secrecy laws in international financial crime.

The Jersey authorities are bringing in riot police from Scotland in case the demonstration turns nasty. Pierre Horsfall, the island's de facto chief minister, said the police had decided to prepare for possible violence in spite of assurances by Attac that the protest would be peaceful: "They (Attac) have been to a lot of lengths to persuade us that they are going to demonstrate in a friendly, family way," he said, "but the authority here is obviously making sure it can deal with any eventuality."

‘We have seen an over-reaction to our planned visit and we are concerned that people are panicking unnecessarily,’ said Jean-Luis Perrault of Attac. ‘We want to assure everyone that we are a peaceful organisation and will be coming to Jersey to hand out leaflets and talk to people. The police are totally over-reacting by bringing in all these extra Scottish police – we were very surprised about it when we found out.'

‘Later this year we will be demonstrating in the south of France, Monaco, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein and nobody is reacting the way Jersey is,’ he added.

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