What the fuck do you think you're going on about? I'm not promoting any organisation or cause here. however i do have a few principles on this matter:

1) If people are legally given rights, then the forces of the law should be the last ones to deny these rights.

2) If people spend a whole day peacefully promoting their protests to the public, and making what they see as injustices better known, they shouldn't be detained by the police.

now that that's dealt with i've got a couple of thoughts about the police. when people asked what they were being detained for many of them were told that they were breaching the peace. how is this at all true? A lot of people gather in one area with a common protest? Big deal. It says in the human rights laws that apply in this country that people have a right to assembly and public protest. Calling it breach of peace is a joke, and detaining people under this allegation is very much illegal.

having said that, people did throw things (after being detained for up to 7 hours) and they needed to be arrested. My personal belief is that next year if people see someone near them doing that, they should dump them in front of the police and disconnect themselves from that person. If people really want a fight with the police then put them right up there in front of them and let them. it's only a minority of the people and they'll lose, and hopefully get the shit kicked out of them in the process.

fuck off if you're just going to act pissed off about the annoyance factor the protest caused to you or about some other self-righteous piece of wank. In all likelihood both sides are wrong to some extent. We should just try to find some way of improving things, not pointing blame.

Quick couple of points.

Last year 'trouble' did not break out early but well into the day.

This year there were several large events before Oxford street where no violence occured. However there were repeated instances of the police using this section 60 order to surround, detain, search, question and photograph people gathered to protest peacefully throughout the day - this happened again and again to groups even as small as 15 holding a vigil outside a prison. The oxford street marathon detention of seven hours is the one the media has focussed on. There were some clashing and a window or two broken, but this occured after several hours of being pushed tigher and tighter together, until we were literally shoulder to shoulder, in the rain with no where to sit and no water.

While people were kept in these grim conditions for 7 hours there were larger numbers of people outside of the police cordons and roadblocks - if everyone was so set of trashing things and fighting the police then these outside the cordons had ample opportunity to do whatever they like - especially when half of the streets in the surrounding area once away from the epicentre were totaly deserted.

There are several accounts on this site sent in by particpants in several large marches that wound around the streets, past all those huge glass windows and expensive shops and banks, even a macdonalds or two without any property damage - some never came across any police, others including the wombles tried to physically push (but not fight) through police lines when cordoned in, but even this group is should be stressed did not go on some rampage of destruction.

Of course the governmet tried to supress this protest, apart from stupid troublemakers most people were protesting against the ecomonic and political system, supported by the british government that causes people to strve to death and live in conditions of appauling poverty in a world where there is plenty for everyone. The govenment supports this immoral system and is acutely embarrassed by this so it tries to discredit and harass the protests in the most cynical and calculating way. none of hitler's brute tactics, these governments are cleverer, subtler and more evil than hitler. Today in the world, A Hiroshima's worth of casualties die unneccsarily from hunger every 3 days. Tony could at least support the protests or DO something to take a lead on these issues but he doesn't have the balls to stand up to Bush. how does he sleep at night?

the problem with an open reply site is your allways gonna get police lackey nazi wankers like jackboot...

theres no point in trying to conduct reasoned debate with ethier police protecters of state property or nazi wanks like jackboot..jackboot wot a fucking joke..i think he mispelt and its really jerkoffboot
put a rubber necktie on the fuck...
as for the reply about handing people up to the police
why not join them in the fucking canteen after aswell you
middle class no brain..pop round for a joint with jackboot
nazifuck the two of you should get on well
one day the people will rise
sue the police for their violence and criminality
expose them in their own courts of injustice

whoever this bod 'jackboot' is s/he's partly right, there would have been damage to shop windows etc on oxford st, and possibly looting too considering the widespread advertising of the opportunity in the mainstream press... however s/he is also wrong, particularly in calling shop assaults 'violence'. I think we have to be very clear especially in the light of the new terrorism act that there is a huge difference between damage to things and damage to living beings.
whatever you call it tho, the police have a better justification for supressing events where window smashing etc is gonna happen...and my impression is that the name 'sale of the century' was more or less an invitation to that sort of event. not to justify police repression, or even to say that it's wrong to cause corporate bastards some annoyance... but maybe if we want to claim the moral high ground with middle england then it's worth having mass protests where there is no clear intention to create a space for window smashing etc... because as long as there is even a chance of it happening, the police etc do have justification of saying that our rightful protests are 'likely to cause a breach of the peace'... and to me, the right to protest freely is more important than the opportunity to break glass... but that's just me.