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A9 areestees released

Martin | 07.07.2005 20:50 | G8 2005 | Repression | Social Struggles

aA9 arrestees finally released after a horrible 30 hour ordeal which involved almost 6 hours in a 3ft x 3ft metal cell in a converted horsebox and an incident with a racist screw

At 7.00 on wednesday 6th July around 20 people made it onto the A9 near woods between blackford and dunblane. Demonstrators were on the road around a minute before the police violently pulled us to the side of the road where we were cordoned. When they tried to unravel a banned denouncing the G8 the police tried to rip the banner out of our hands by punching demonstrators in the face and on the wrists and had the banner confiscated.

The protesters were kept on the roadside for around 3 hours without water and soaking wet and cold after spending a night in the woods nearby. The were then loaded into a converted hourse box used by the police for transport at around 10:30 and loaded into a 3ftx3ft metal cell with barely enough room to sit down uncomfortably and no light except for a tiny hole at the top.

One protestor was clearly suffering from hypotermia and was refused medical treatment by the officers on the van and it was only after constant pleading that another of the demonstrators was allowed to donate him a jacket. Another of those arrested suffered from clostrophobia and was hysterical the whole time until around 4 in the afternoon, when after nearly 6 hours in the tiny cell they were finally let out.

Once in the police station the people were put into police cells, many hadn't slept all night the previous night and were only given 1 matress between 2 people and were kept in the cells until this afternoon in some cases. Futher the station officers were waking up all those arrested every 2 hours with bogus claim of wanting to take fingerprints, some had their fingerprints taken 4 times during the stay.

Some of those arrested were taken to court at 8:30 in the morning and had to wait in a holding cell with 20 other people (all of these had spent a night sleeping rough in the woods and had not showerd, so it got pretty smelly) for up to 8 hours before finally being released. When one spanish person asked a officer how long he was to be detained he was told "Fuck off you foreign bastard" and was detained for nearly 4 hours AFTER he had been given bail by the courts because the court lost his release papers.

All people were eventually given bail with conditions to leave the area until July 11th, most have been charged with breach of the peace and ordered to return in August and September

Martin