Thursdays protest at Sellafield was the first attempt at Direct Action at the plant since the beginning of the Shut Down Sellafield campaign. It was the third demo there since November. The previous two times the police were quite nice as there is a policy that anyone can go and protest at the plant. This time though the protest was well planned and the blockade began immediately once the protesters got off their buses. The protest was split in two as Sellafield has two main access roads and a blockade began in each of these areas.
At the second protest things went fairly well. The planned lock-on was deemed unnecessary, as the police were not arresting people for being on the road. The worst incident happened early on when a woman who works at Sellafield attempted to drive through the blockade aiming her car at three people and not stopping even once one of them was thrown onto the bonnet of her car.
I was at the first protest where things were different. The police were largely outnumbered and under trained. When they arrived some of them were immediately heavy handed. They pushed people with excessive force and kicked people in the lock-on. It was evident that their orders were to clear the road as soon as possible. Some of the ridiculous things they attempted to do included pulling people who were chained together in order to separate them, causing people severe pain. And attempting to saw through a pipe which people were chained together inside. The police would have had to cut through the two peoples hands in order to get at the chain. People trying to explain this to the police were pushed, hit and thrown to the ground. Many people watching this were terrified of what was happening. Most especially the man and woman who could have been sawed through.
The police did not seem to believe that the protesters were really chained together and were trying to call their bluff.
Many people have commented about what has happened on Thursday. Some saying that you will only find confrontation with the police if you seek it. Nobody in that lock-on was expecting violent confrontation from the police. Four of the six had just come from Faslane where they attended a very similar protest. There the police are specifically trained to deal with protests of this nature and do not seek to unnecessarily injure protesters. In Sellafield on Thursday the special task force trained to deal with protests was given the day off despite the fact that they knew a protest was planned that day. Why?
Two days previous in Faslane a man climbed on the gate of the base and single handedly caused the gate to be locked for nearly four hours. The police had to spend hours erecting a scaffold to remove him without seriously hurting him. A couple of comments were made that if he was dealing with the Genoan police they would have just opened the gate and let him fall. It may have been a joke but it was probably the truth. The police will for the most part follow their orders. In Faslane people are not scared to come and protest, they may be arrested but they will not be hurt. Because of this fact there is a protest twice a year and this year the February protest has expanded to last three days. BNFL do not want this to happen at Sellafield. The rough treatment of protesters was intended to prevent this kind of action there becoming a regular event.
BNFL maintain that they were not affected by the protest on Thursday. That it was business as usual. This can not be true. I have worked for large companies who, if work is delayed by half an hour need to spend three days catching up. The plant was almost completely closed for over four hours, surrounded by six mile tail backs and nobody even able to arrive by rail because rail workers were stuck in traffic jams causing the trains to be cancelled. Sellafield was not running business as usual.
Protesters that were hurt shall be making complaints about their treatment. And this was only the first of many direct actions at the plant. Don’t let police treatment of peaceful protesters scare you, they are not as scary as Sellafield. Lets make sure that just like at Faslane it will never be business as usual at Sellafield again.