There's a Freedom to Protest Conference on Sunday 23rd October, the day after the Anarchist Book Fair at: The Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Rd, London, N7. 11am-5pm. Free admission. More info at www.freedomtoprotest.org.uk. Make a weekend of it!

If this is true it's utterly outrageous!

I mean orange jump suits and a giant ID card... oh yeah obviously gonna have a mini riot.

Let's see how long the police hold them for and what legislation they claim to use.

Then sue them. Big time.

so while the eu ministers meet to consider future of european human rights law in the face of terrorist threats and look at the balance between data retention as proposed by the uk and civil liberties concerns... the uk police detain peaceful protestors to stop them protesting about civil liberties!?

for fucks sake!

if anyone's got any contacts with the people arrested then you could do worse than get onto the mainstream media - i'm sure quite a few would run with it, given how ludicrous the whole thing seems to be.

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/4225858.stm
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4225188.stm

I did not find out that my daughter was one of the 6 arrested for having the audacity to protest at the EU Ministers' meeting in Newcastle until a vanload of police turned up at my house some 7 hours later with a warrant to search the whole house. Among the things they bagged and took away for 'analysis'(???) were a Green Party magazine (very conservative), a flyer for a T-shirt company picked up at the Make Poverty History rally (also hardly seditious) and a leaflet by Cures without Cruelty!!!
As I write this, she is still in custody.

Smart boys and girls, allowing Blair's goons to take you down so easily!!! However, learn from the experience!

-any group of any size must be considered to be fully infiltrated. Despite the risks, the government agents will always attempt to occupy controlling positions, so that they can NIX all suggestions for effective action, and push the group toward impotent or self-destructive methods. The agents will especially identify any action that is emotive or intelligent or imaginative, and guide the group away from this. Destructive egos will be encouraged, as they are the MOST effective way of disrupting group activity. Constructive egos will be identified, and isolated, using stand psychological techniques. (Want to learn something about this- watch 'The Apprentice'. while phoney in large parts, and manipulated for the camera, excellent lessons can still be learnt about Group Dynamics!- see how easily one well placed person can disrupt and destroy any possibility of the group doing well)

-group action must be designed to be proof against informers and 'agent provocateurs'. Assume the worst- both in terms of illegal state actions, and the information the state has about you and your plans. While the 'party atmosphere' may be a major incentive for people to protest against Blair and his plans, the 'party' should happen at the actual site, not in the planning and execution stages. Learn to arrange yourselves in cells for the purpose of moving people and protest uniforms/placards etc. Don't move as one juicy target, with the sign 'take us down' on your back. Think about using public transport more- at least for getting there (ie trains there, coaches back).

-do NOT place much faith in 'community'. What do you think is the REAL reason of sites like Indymedia. Place your faith instead in your purpose. Expect the worst. Be especially careful of those students that were informally recruited by the internal security forces at uni (these schemes are VERY SIMILAR to the territorial army, or armed services reserve-training, except they apply to people who like to play at 'spy'- their activities revolve around joining groups, and making reports about the activities of the groups, and giving details about key members. Ironically, they are often genuinely sympathetic to the purposes of the group, but this makes them more dangerous, because they will seem MORE trustworthy).

-if your group is becoming effective it will attract a lot of heat (and these people play by NO RULES, they would happily torture or execute you if the UK allowed that now). Understand what the bad guys want to do, and how they will act to achieve their ends. How will they learn about your plans? How will they track you? How will they attempt to terminate your operations? Imagine it is a game, and you are on THEIR side. Think about what you would need to do to win, and then use that knowledge on YOUR side to stop them winning.

-RECORD EVERYTHING. Blair's people are BAD humans, currently acting outside the law, knowing that Blair has a lock down on the courts, press, and government. These are bad times, but no where near as bad as they will be a little way down the road. Get used to memory card movement (getting memory cards out of cameras as soon as the images are recorded, and off to 'runners'). Use mobile phones as 'open mikes' with someone recording the sound at the other end. Try experimenting with wireless linked (eg bluetooth) cameras, so that the person recording is NOT visible to Blair's goons, even though the camera man is. Try using the tiny MP3 recorders, especially for getting the dialogue spoken at arrest and after.

-Understand that Blair's goons here, and other places, will call you a liar when you describe what actually happened. Blair's agents will be amongst the group arrested (for obvious reasons) and will be making an assessment about those facts you can actually PROVE afterwards. This knowledge will be used by those making comments doubting your veracity here (and elsewhere). In other words, if bad thing 'BT' happens to you, and one of those agents present decides that you have no way of proving BT afterwards, he/she will inform the usual Blair Goon posters here, and when you refer to BT, they will call you a liar (conspiracy theorist or whatever) KNOWING that you cannot prove the BT to a general audience. This is a very simple and very EFFECTIVE psy-ops trick.

-don't lose heart. Most people are not scumbags, but sometimes they allow themselves to be seriously misled. However, if you protest in times like these, the real scumbags will concentrate around you, in order to make you lose hope. You won't win in the end- by which I mean we won't win in the end. Sadly it has gone way to far for that, and Blair will get his dominion over this Earth. However, your eyes that behold the horror of the living Hell that will engulf this planet will be windows to an uncorrupted soul, and thus your own eternity can progress in the best way!

Dear Twilight,

we are some of the six who got arrested. We enjoyed reading your comments, and would like to invite you to give a short talk on the subject you covered at a day of workshops that we have been planning for next weekend.

We'd be happy cover your travelling expenses to Newcastle and accomodation can be arranged.

If interested please get in touch at  whydontyou@post.com

Otherwise do have any tested out tecniques of identifying infiltrators, as our arrests were a result of human intelligence. Any pointers will be kindly appreciated.

Respect.

Thom Cowan, Whydontyou, Newcastle

5 of the Gosforth 6 went to Etal Lane Station yestrday. The orange boiler suits were returned so that we got changed into once at the police car park. Not long after an office employee approached us and enquired as to what we were doing there, and we answered that we were answering bail and had point to make....

When the secone persons time came a sergent came out and said that they'll deal with us quickly, one after another rather the on the pre-scheduled half an hour slots.

The procedure went quite quick, us signing for each item that had been taken from people and vehicles and they werent't going to even tell a word mord more, unless had asked, and the answer was the phrase "no further action".

We got the giant ID card back and Phil, Rhian and Geordie will be more than likely in today's Journal (the local newspaper).