Police ‘pre-emptive strike’ against protest
The Guardian reports:
Police have carried out what is thought to be the biggest pre-emptive raid on environmental campaigners in British history, arresting 114 people believed to be planning direct action at a coal-fired power station. The arrests – for conspiracy to commit criminal damage and aggravated trespass – come amid growing concern among protesters about increased police surveillance and infiltration by informers.
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Last night campaigners said police were photographing and stopping people entering and leaving public meetings and the offices of the lobby group Greenpeace.
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Last month a Guardian investigation revealed police were targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations at events including the Climate Camp, and storing their details on a database for at least seven years.
More: John Sauven on CIF / Indymedia.
Who’s to blame for the accidental death?
Both Shuggy and Chris Dillow are right in pointing out that the police treatment of Ian Tomlinson was far from shocking, as some others have claimed.
If anything, the officer who violently pushed him over when there was no need whatsoever to do so was taking part in some of the less dangerous action with the protesters that day. As long as Tomlinson didn’t hit his head, and from the video it seems that he didn’t, a push like that is only likely to result in grazed or cut knees and hands, along with the temporary shock that comes from being bundled over when you’re not expecting it. The cracking of heads which other officers were engaged in all day, causes far more potential for concern.
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Protests and ‘trustafarians’
You know, I was watching that G20 protest on TV this week, and I found myself filled with inexplicable, blinding white rage.
At first, I struggled to explain the feeling. It certainly wasn’t caused by the epic outburst of fiscal fuckery the big banks used to accidentally tank the world’s economy. Nor is it the fact that the deranged self-confidence of this tiny oligarchy has inadvertently transformed British and American democracy – your birth-right and mine – into a fierce contest to see which political party can keep them the happiest.
It’s not as if this situation is new, after all. The idea that democracy is about representing the interests of 1) the super wealthy for the supposed benefit of… 2) everybody else has been at the heart of UK politics for at least thirty years… So no, that wasn’t the reason for my rage.
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So who will excuse police brutality now?
Shocking as it is, the Guardian video showing Ian Tomlinson’s treatment at the G20 protests shouldn’t come as a surprise. Rowenna Davis and I said on the day that police behaviour and strategy was completely counter-productive. Stuart White illustrated how the peaceful Climate Camp was turned into a warzone thanks to them. They said protestors hurled bricks at them as they tried to help Tomlinson (and the gullible media bought it). Why are we even surprised? The Met police lied during the Charles De Menzes inquiry remember? And this is why the police don’t like videos and pictures taken of them.
Despite all the first-hand accounts and concerns raised about civil liberties, right-wingers have been furiously trying to protect the police from criticism all this week. And now? Complete silence.
As James Graham points out – they can’t even bring themselves to comment. The stench of hypocrisy is over-whelming because the right only get exercised about civil liberties when one of their own gets into trouble. They’ll happily point and laugh when lefties get kettled and beaten at a demo just for protesting, because their concern for civil liberties is soundbite-deep.
As Guy Aitchison says, Britain has a ‘policing problem’ – but neither the media nor the establishment want to have that discussion or admit to it. At least New Labour doesn’t pretend its concerned about civil liberties.
More blog comment:
Laurie Penny – Fuck
Sunder Katwala – The death of Ian Tomlinson
Tom Miller – Assaulted by police shortly before his death
Labour Left Forum – Police Murder
Harry’s Place – Horrendous
Bloggerheads – Ian Tomlinson assaulted
Prog Gold – Police murdered Tomlinson
Bristle’s blog – How many laughing policemen does it take…?
LibdemVoice – Ian Tomlinson – video footage emerges
More links
Two Doctors – The death of Ian Tomlinson
Lee Griffin – The day I lost all faith in my country’s authorities
Mental Nurse – The death of Ian Tomlinson
Mark Reckons – Ian Tomlinson
John Q Publican – Feast of Fools II: Foot in Mouth
The Big Blog – G20 Police Brutality
Paul Sagar – Evan Davis: Apologist for Police Brutality?
Andrew Hickey – The British Police Are The Best…
Neil Harding – Finally Caught On Camera Lying…
Dan O’Huiginn – Turning people against the police
Curly’s Corner Shop – Met. Police must answer…
Mr Eugenides – a libertarian blogger reacts
An Englishman’s Castle – Out of Control Policing
Justin McKeating – Police medic in job creation scheme
Another update
Harpymarx – Cops reaction: making the usual excuses…
Hagley Road to Ladywood – Law and Order
Ecomonkey – The Evidence
Will Rhodes – Conservative: Wearing plain clothes antagonised…
In My Humble Etc – Police violence at Climate Camp
Sim-O – You vicious bastards
5CC – Ian Tomlinson and the tabloids
A new challenger appears – Death in the city
Janus face – We must establish the truth…
There’s a protest at Bethnal Green Police Station on Saturday 11th April 11.30am
Video shows police assault on Ian Tomlinson
Post by Guy Aitchison of Our Kingdom
A video has just been published on The Guardian website showing Ian Tomlinson (the man who died at G20 protests) being pushed and beaten from behind by a baton-wielding police officer as he tried to walk away. The police offer no assistance as he lies injured on the ground. He died shortly after.
Stop storage of your web data!
You may have read that email and internet phone information now has to be stored by your internet provider. The new law – promoted and pushed in the EU by the UK government – is a first step before they try to change how they can ‘intercept’ your communications.
You can help build the campaign to stop this, firstly by inviting all your friends to our Facebook campaigning group. Secondly, sign the No 10 petition if you haven’t done so already. We need to stop this!
A reader writes…
An LC reader wrote in with this email. She was happy for it to be published.
I am a “UNISON” shop steward. My landlords The Eltham Constituency Labour Party have just applied to Woolwich County Court for a Bailiff appointment to evict me from their property,
my home, of 26 years.
The response by my MP, Clive Efford, when I advised him of their actions:
CE ‘why are you telling me this?’
ACD ‘because you are my M…’
CE ‘well I’m a tenant too’ and away he hurried.
Yes, he is a tenant as regards his office, but not his home. They videoed their last inspection. The last time they [only] photographed an inspection, they threatened to publish the results. I’m thinking that’s what they will say and do this time. I expect the footage is on You Tube by now.
Dawn Butler, Tony McNulty, Jacqui Smith they have homes aplenty and expenses. Me? No home…and humiliation
Annie D
Media quietly admits smearing G20 protestors
Oh look, the Metro reports today:
Eyewitnesses today described how protesters came to the aid of a man who collapsed and died during G20 demonstrations at the Bank of England. Police were involved in running battles with protesters in central London when the man, believed to be in his 30s, fell to the ground and stopped breathing.
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“One or maybe two plastic bottles were thrown, but it was by people further back in the crowd who did not know what was going on. There definitely wasn’t a rain of bottles. There were lots of us gathered around him telling people to give him space. The idea that protesters did not care is completely false.”
This contrasts with the Evening Standard’s disgusting piece yesterday stating the police were ‘pelted with bricks’ when trying to help him – a story they quietly changed on their website later. The paper is a stain on London.
RIP Ian Tomlinson, a guy who was just walking by, and got caught in the Met Police’s delightful strategy of ‘kettling’ people in. BenSix has more.
The siege of Climate Camp
There is an old anarchist saying: the state creates the violence which it uses to justify its existence. Like a lot of anarchist sayings, it is an exaggeration of the truth. But it nevertheless contains a partial truth. If you needed evidence of this truth, one only had to be present at the G20 Climate Change Camp in Bishopsgate on April 1, 2009.
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I still blame police brutality
We knew this was coming. The Met police had been scaremongering about the G20 protests for weeks through a willing media, based on a few random website postings. This, from an institution which the Joint Select Committee on Human Rights said only a week ago was “too heavy-handed in dealing with protests”. This, from an institution that intentionally harassed and went completely over the top with Climate Camp last year.
And the same happened yesterday. We were only reporting for the Guardian and yet, unexplicably, the police closed in on all protestors from as early as 12:30pm and would not let the several thousand people go anywhere. We managed to escape through the police cordon, but Dave Hill was stuck there till late evening and some, according to the police, would be there till midnight. They all had to be photographed and had their details taken down you see. For just attending a protest.
We can argue endlessly whether the G20 protests had a point. People can even sneer at the message. That is to be expected. But this is about the fact that our basic right to stage a peaceful protest is being eroded. They will just detain you for hours on end, without a toilet to go to, and then arrest you or beat you if you choose to complain. And then they’ll take down your details. Is this the sort of democracy we want to live in?
Sure, there were trouble-makers, as any protest does. But the police penalised everyone right from the start. They predicted trouble and then created the conditions for it. And now undoubtedly they’ll play the victim, aided by a willing media that dance to their tune. And then we wonder what the fuck happened to our civil liberties.
Hobby Horsemen of the Apocalypse!
Good grief, but the G20 protests are kicking up some action. According to Red Pepper’s tweeter-on-the-ground, all you can hear is barking dogs and police helicopters, and it’s getting ugly. Like an idiot, I promised myself that I’d stay home and ohyes, get a lot of work done all day like a good girl. What’s actually happened is that I’ve been sat in front of the laptop getting wriggly, checking the news every thirty seconds, letting a succession of cups of tea go cold and wishing I was down on the streets.
Because I believe in the power of protest, and because this one in particular bloody fascinates me.
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Where do our liberties go from here?
I’ve never been part of anything that got so many congratulatory messages than the Convention on Modern Liberty, and enquiries about what next and “how do we turn the energy into action?” So, how do we?
Jack Straw in his sniffy Guardian article said, “My very good constituency office files show no recent correspondence relating to fears about the creation in Britain of a ‘police state’ or a ’surveillance society’”. Can we answer Straw by taking the energy of the Convention to the country?
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Individuals have rights, not religions
If the framers of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were still alive to today, would they be happy with what the U.N. has become? Whilst we can’t ignore or dismiss its enormous humanitarian work and the countless lives saved as a result, what would they have made of UN’s record of defending the very principles which made these good works possible, and which remains the organisation’s one flawless foundation?
After reading the latest news, I suspect their judgement would not be kind. The U.N.’s Human Rights Council has finally approved a long-threatened motion calling on member states to outlaw the ‘defamation’ of religion.
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A chance to outlaw homophobic hatred
Some may recall the homophobic campaigns run by the Sun in the not-so-distant past, including that of labelling HIV ‘the Gay Plague’ and the one about the ‘Gay Mafia running the country’ in 1998. You may also recall the Sun’s false allegations about Elton John. They only stopped when they were forced to pay £1m in damages. Overall, they did more to stigmatise gay people and those with HIV than any other publication in Britain.
It’s no surprise then that Fergus Shanahan, their most right wing columnist, is lashing out at the currently debated Coroners And Justice Bill. Some MPs are lobbying to include Clause 58 – which would extent the offence of incitement to hatred to the area of sexual orientation, placing homophobic hatred on a par with the areas of racism or religious hatred.
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Lawyer-Client Privilege is No More
Via Purple Cthulhu and El Reg comes the news that The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act specifically authorises bugging of lawyer-client privileged discussions, something that pre-RIPA had been assumed to be sacrosanct
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“In its natural and ordinary sense [RIPA] is capable of applying to privileged consultations and there is nothing in its wording which would operate to exclude them,” Lord Carswell wrote in his ruling. “It seems to me unlikely that the possibility of RIPA applying to privileged consultations could have passed unnoticed [in Parliament]. On the contrary, it is an obvious application of the Act, yet no provision was put in to exclude them.”
So we can add Lawyer-client confidentiality to the right to silence and habeus corpus and all the other protections for the accused which have gone by the wayside under this government. Another salami slice gone.
Something for my homeboy Huhne to add to his freedom bill, perhaps?
Abolish Seditious Libel
There’s a chance that the outdated law of seditious libel could be abolished today. Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP, has tabled amendments to clauses 5 and 37 of the Coroners & Justice Bill. The move has support accross party lines, is welcomed by campaigning groups like Liberty, Index on Censorship, and English PEN, and by campaigning comedians Mark Thomas and Rowan Atkinson.
Unfortunately, there’s a chance that MPs may not get to vote on the amendment, since only a short time (45 minutes, I believe) has been allocated to debate such things.
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Report: Govt has lost control of database state
A quarter of all databases are fundamentally flawed and must be scapped, says a landmark study out today.
The first ever comprehensive map of Britain’s database state today reveals how the database obsession of government has left officials struggling to control billions of records of our most personal details and almost every contact we have with the agencies set up to serve and protect us.
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Watch: Bloggers summit at CoML
Finally, I offer you the video discussion and presentations from the successful (I thought) bloggers summit at the Convention on Modern Liberty. The team had to upload tons of videos so unfortunately this took longer than expected. I also briefly wrote about the presentations on CIF after the event.
Below is the presentations: by Sam Smith of MySociety, Heather Brooke of Your Right To Know, Ben Goldacre of Bad Science and Phil Booth of No2ID. Then a discussion follows after.
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Met’s propaganda poster lies about terrorism and CCTV
The contract of advertising agency Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy with the Metropolitan Police Service expires at the end of March. They are being replaced by Gordon Brown’s favourite ad agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, who gave him “Design services” during his Labour party leadership non-election “coronation” campaign.
ABV BBDO have also been awarded the lucrative Home Office ID Cards propaganda account. Presumably Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy are at least partly to blame for the current Metropolitan Police Service anti-terrorism advertising campaign launched this week.
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Will Barclays’ scam create public anger?
It would be nice to think that with various tax havens having to promise to be rather more transparent in their operations than they have been previously, that the actual businesses which exploit such havens would be following a similar trajectory. The sad reality is that both will continue to get away with it just as they have in the past: when the economy eventually recovers, they will go back to doing what they do best, letting the rich and powerful get away it while castigating the scum at the bottom who dare to fiddle their benefits.
Barclays however hasn’t even bothered with letting it all blow other.
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