For over six hours they faced down hundreds of riot police and water canon, hemmed in on all four sides on the north bank of the River Rhone. Police hoped to intimidate them into accepting a humiliating escape - leaving one by one subject to searches and possible arrests - but they refused and sat down, tying up one of the main intersections in Geneva.

Their defiance was crucial. After the relative success of police repression on the various blockades of the G8 on June 1, they had banned all further protest in the city. Participants in the InterGalactic and the VAAGE camps in Annemasse decided to defy the ban and hold a demonstration against water privatisation.

Marching on the WTO building in the Northern quarter, with hundreds of water bottle props, the action soon met up with the German riot police, who while swigging from their bottles of Evian water, called up their water canon. The Swiss police took control of the other exit point.

By 6pm people wanted to return to southern quarter of the city to join with people penned in by police after arriving late because of searches by the French National Police in Annemasse. This is when the police layed their trap - a trap as it turned out with consequences for them as much as the protest.

They allowed people to link up, but then created their cordon in the middle of the city. It was a huge operation for the small numbers of protesters and it seems likely police wanted to create a spectacle after being slammed in the media for failing to stop the property damage of the night before.

But it backfired, they surrounded the protest. But then the citizens of Geneva began to surround them.

It started with curious onlookers, young kids, tourists, and some small numbers of activists hanging out in the bars and streets around the train station north of the river. As the crowd press forward police fired flash grenades. People panicked and ran, but started to drift back. Police fired again, people came back but more quickly. Soon fireworks and a few bottles hearded towarsd the police lines and plastic bullets came skidding across the pavement.

But the thousands of people remained and the German police had to escalate their tatctics with water canon and finally then gas. The gas quickly spread across the northern suburbs, people in bars and hotels were gased along with people on the streets. I saw one foyer of a hotel fill with gas and the residents having to flee. One middle aged American tourist, who i helped with some lemon to neutralise the gas, was in disbelief. "They are fascists" he screamed.

It took a while to clear the several city blocks between the river and the train station. People kept coming back, buoyed on by the drum, trumpet and saxophone that struck an impromptu session while the smell of gas wafted across the street.

Police had wanted to show they were in control, but instead proved the opposite. A lot of citizens of Geneva will be asking questions about why they were injured by plastic bullets and were coughing up phglem while out for a drink on this warm Swiss evening.

Hopefully they will also be asking why as few as 500 activists merely marching down the street against privatisation of the most crucial giver of life - water.

Many people were injured and according to reports police delayed ambulances. But despite this people maintained their solidarity and defiance. People on the bridge finally had to disperse as the violence escalated, but they did so with dignity and according to reports most weren't searched.

The ban on protest had been defied, with some cost, but once again the attempt at repression had failed.