“The excuse being used is that the marchers may cause obstruction to people attending a Winter Wonderland event taking place half a mile away,” an STWC spokesman said.
“It is not acceptable that protesters should be excluded from this space for purely commercial considerations. We call on the authorities to change their decision,” said the spokesman.
Despite the refusal, he said that plans were going ahead with the national march, which is being supported by several MPs, families of soldiers killed in the war and servicemen refusing to fight in Afghanistan.
“In February 2003 we were told we were not allowed to march against the invasion of Iraq because we might damage the grass in the park but it did not stop more than a million demonstrators attending what become London’s biggest ever anti-war protest,” STWC said.
The march, which is calling for the immediate withdrawal of Britain’s 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, is time to coincide with the war entering its tenth year.
STWC president and former veteran cabinet minister Tony Benn said the war had lasted longer than last century’s two World Wars put together and there was “no prospect whatsoever of a military victory'.
Speakers’ Corner at the north-west of Hyde Park has been used as a traditional site for public speeches and debate as well as the main site of protest and assembly in London for nearly 200 years.
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