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Update of the Protest against the Efficient Consumer Response Conference

Jamie | 17.05.2001 09:37

Yesterday Six protestors were prevented from handing out leaflets at the Efficient Consumer Response meeting that is being held in Glasgow.

Yesterday Six protestors were prevented from handing out leaflets at the Efficient Consumer Response meeting that is being held in Glasgow. They were told that the conference center was private property (?I wonder if taxpayer money funded the construction?), and if they continued to stay on the property they would be arrested for breach of the peace. More than 40 police officers followed a group of six protestors all afternoon. Usually six protestors gathering would not be news, however the police's response was so shameful that I feel it deserves reporting. After I had been identified as a protestor I was followed and harrased everywhere I went. I had a group of at least 20 police accompany me as I walked to the train station to go home, and they didn t leave until I was at the station. All we were doing was handing out leaflets, and many delegates became curious and defied police lines coming to us to get our literature. One delegate referred to the police response as "Disgusting". Many of us felt we were denied our right to free association, as it was obvious the police were given orders to stop us from handing out our leaflets. The police physically restrained one demonstrator as she tried to put her hand over the police line to give a delegate a leaflet. The delegate came up to her, and took the leaflet from her as she wrestled with police, the delegate was obviously curious about what the police wanted to hide them from. The meeting concludes today. The efficient consumer response conference is a conference all about how to cut costs to make products cheaper. Protestors felt that by making products cheaper that would mean further exploiting already marginalized workforces, furhter degrading environmental regulations, and cutting tons of "un-needed jobs" thus putting an even larger workload on low level employees.

Jamie

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  1. what? — Karl