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Reclaim The Streets in Barcelona (9/03)

imcista | 09.03.2002 19:42 Barcelona EU | World

As part of the Campaign against the Europe of Capital and War, a Reclaim the Streets party is now taking place in downtown Barcelona. This action is the starting point of the week long of mobilisations against the EU-Summit in Barcelona, 9-16 March

Latest news:

UPDATE - 9.30pm: Unconfirmed reports that The Reclaim the Streets demonstration has been attacked by police as it was leaving Pca Catalunya towards Avgda. Paral.lel. Reports of police indiscriminately charging people in the area

- 7.00pm: Around 3.000 people are taking part in today's Reclaim the Streets. The demonstration departed Pça Universitat at 6.00pm and it has made its way peacefully to the central Placa Catalunya. People is trying to keep up a festive and carnival spirit, even though there is a massive police presence. This includes more than 30 riot vans, 200 riot police on foot following the crowd and a police helicopter.

There are strong fears that the police could attack the demontrators at any time, or violently react to any 'provocation'. Rumours are spreading that the police have orders to attack the demonstration as soon as the sound system leaves the area.

For latest info and updates see: Indymedia Barcelona
and Indymedia-UK World page.

imcista

Comments

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Well . . .

10.03.2002 14:43

I was on the RTS last night and I can´t say that I saw any police behaviour that could be characterised as "brutality".

Yes, it´s true that we were shadowed by riot cops throughout the action. However, they made no attempt to prevent us from marching (like they did in Munich). Even when the soundsystem van left and activists blockaded a major road junction, the cops just stood by and let the traffic stop for over an hour.

When they moved in to eject the sit-down protestors (of which I was one), they behaved with remarkable civility . . . one activist chucked a bottle at a riot cop (it missed) and some others attempted a scuffle outside the Paral´lel metro station, but the police didn´t rise to the bait.

I think they´ve been ordered to be on their best behaviour. Let´s see if it will last till the end of next weekend - when the summit proper starts with a day of Direct Actions!

Anarchist Rioter

Clarification

11.03.2002 16:22

The rumour of police attacking the crowd is unsubstantiated, and no one except the original poster (anonymous) on the the barcelona site has any knowledge of such an incident.

George's Bush
- Homepage: http://barcelona.indymedia.org/