LEEDS FESTIVAL TURNS TO RIOTS
local | 27.08.2001 16:23 | Culture | Free Spaces | Repression
On Sunday night once the headliners had all finished their sets, music lovers from all over the North of England, Scotland and Ireland moved to Campsite K, which has the closest set of toilets to the arena. After destroying the Security's watch tower the previous night, they had no problems wiping out maybe 50 portaloos and a generator before torching them all. Then people starting moving towards the next toilets, the BIG ones. Again, we destroyed torched, danced and moved with very little hassel form the police. Then we started chanting 'Red Camp, Red Camp' We gathered the crews together, but when we arroved at the next set security were there, but no police. Security Guards all holding metre long metal poles. None of the hippys yeielding weapons. Swinging them around caused a crush, so we brought down the lamposts. Ha! they fenced us in, and started driving at us in jeeps, knocking many people over, including myself. A young girl was badly injured. This pissed alot of people off who managed to break fences down for weapons and we ran after the vans who couldnt get past the lamposts. We managed to get free and take down the next set of toilets. Then came the riot police, forming c a circle around the fire, the damn fools, with many unexploded toilets and gas canisters. Then came in the hardcore front line rioters who were scanging the floor for bottles. And jesus were there a lot of empty bottles. The police threw many back, and beat the crap out of anyone they could, even those unarmed arrested people.
We managed to push them back into a small lane where we closed the gate on the and blocked it with poles.
We pushed the piggys right back to where they came from and had a fun night. It would have been better if it wasn't for the severe brutality of both the AP security guards and the West Yorkshire riot police.
PLease post any photos if you have them, i know many professional photographers took some, but nobody working for the media was there...
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