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northwood timeline

imc | 07.04.2003 14:48

Northwood Military Base Timeline - 6th April 2003

(part of reclaim the bases weekend of anti-war protests)


11am Groups of people are gathering at the tube station and a multi faith vigil is going ahead near the base. There are large numbers of police everywhere.

12:00 Small group have been gathering as close to the main gate as they can get. Some bang pots and pans.

13:00 - 6 women staged a naked protest against naked aggression.

13:30 Around 20 people outmanouvered police and managed to get to the perimeter fence at the back of the base with a banner reading "Against War Against Capitalism". Soon they were followed by about 30 police with dogs. They are now making their way out of the crown estate next the perimeter of the base.

A sitdown near the front gates has been aggressively removed.

14:15 - About 100 protesters are playing drums and holding a picnic in a detention cordon not far from the main gate. They are held under section 14 of the Criminal Justice act and section 3 of the Public Order Act.

Between 15 and 20 people blocked traffic on other side of the base. They joined another group on their way to the main gate. Eventually, the police escorted them into the cordon. People are dragged into the cordon, descriptions are being taken. About a dozen more police vans have arrived. There are over 5 police CCTV surveillance vans present.

15:00 - Negotiations in the cordon: One group put their names on a list and were in turn were allowed to leave and were put in a police van (presumably towards the station). The rest refuses to leave the cordon in groups of nine as suggested by police, but want to march all together.

15:30 - The detention has ended. Everybody is marching to the tube station without having given their names - accompanied by a huge police escourt. Some protesters have said they will take legal action over their detention in the cordon. Legal team says 6 people were arrested.

Unconfirmed reports that up to 60 people were prevented from leaving northwood tube station around lunchtime!!

imc

Comments

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So the liberal left have caught us up!

09.04.2003 15:34

So the peace campaigners many of whom will have never been on a demo before, have finally seen the true nature of how the police in the UK work.
As an animal rights campaigner I've seen how the government has brought in laws to stop people demonstrating and how they have fine tuned them at A/R demonstrations and how we have had to fight them on our own as campaigners from other leftist or peaceful leaning individuals or groups have commented that we must have deserved what we got because we are a violent movement.
Now you are getting a taste of the way the police react and know you don't have to have been doing anything.
All the Acts that are being used by the police now have been around for a few years and none of you supported our attempts to have them stopped - giving the excuse that you would never do things that the police would be able to arrest you for - well it's wake up time and it's too late. This last two months the A/R movement has been holding meetings to see how we can get around the laws. Now it's your turn to be on the end of the authorities draconian rules, maybe now you will see that we are not violent and change your better than us attitude.

Neil James
mail e-mail: jame@arcnews.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.arcnews.co.uk