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Animal Rights Protester Arrested in Liverpool

ScouseVeg | 25.05.2007 18:46 | Animal Liberation | Repression | Liverpool

At the regular weekly demo last Saturday, the police arrested one of the protesters.
Below is an abridged version, via the Merseyside Animal Rights mailing list, from the person who was arrested. I’m not going to identify the individual, haven’t got permission to publish his experience but I hope they will not mind because it highlights what sort of treatment the people who are staging the demo’s are going through.

“Just in case people don’t know, I was arrested yesterday at Cricket for ‘witness intimidation’. The officer who arrested me, …. , turned up and was immediately being aggressive, pointing his finger in my face and raising his voice. After refusing to leave the area as I didn’t consider being there witness intimidation, I was taken to the police van, where, out of sight of the camera, the officer started to insult us, calling us little people without jobs annoying people who are paying taxes. After not saying anything in reply, the officer then slammed the doors to the van on me and I was taken into the police station…

…. I spent 5 hours in the cell and did an interview which was based on them telling me that I was told to stay away from the area, but I came back anyway. The reason I had to stay away from the area was that I was summonsed to court for using a megaphone, and the people in the shop put in a complaint against me….

… I was told I would be summonsed to court for the use of the megaphone on the 7th April (although I’d not actually been summonsed). The officer who arrested me told the sergeant my summons was being processed earlier that day….

…The staff in Cricket said they all feel harrassed and intimidated by me being there…

…When I was released from the cell I was told that I was almost kept in the cell till Monday, when I would appear at the Crown court and could have served time in prison if found guilty. If I go back to Cricket now, I will have to serve time in prison for harrassment. My situation now is that I’m on bail and have to go back on the 17th of July. They are collecting evidence in the form of CCTV. Since I’ve not denied being in the area, I don’t know what the CCTV footage is going to add to the case. I was filmed by cricket, and so if that evidence is used it will show what I was saying, which was not aimed at the staff of Cricket….”

ScouseVeg
- Homepage: http://www.scouseveg.co.uk

Additions

Cricket...

26.05.2007 16:14

...is a 'fashionable' (i.e. for the rich) shop in Liverpool's Mathew Street, which sells some fur products. For example, a fur handbag costs £1,100. Animal rights protesters have been holding a weekly picket over this issue for a long time.

Neon Black
- Homepage: http://dreaming-neon-black.blogspot.com


Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Screw the little people!

26.05.2007 07:20

Its a well known fact that I allow Rupert Murdoch,Prince Charles&his bnp advisors+ other billionaires tax loop holes & offshore havens as long as we keep rubbing each others back.
Its the single people paying taxes & your small businesses I like feeding off the most to pay for important things like the olympics,nuclear subs etc even if they are trying to support people fairly like workers cooperatives.
Maybe thou I will wake up & stop taxing the "little" people in the uk rather than going around the world pretending to be giving debt aid, but really helping billionaire loan sharks like the IMF& world bank & Chase Morgan bank.

Really I know only fascists are of the opinion of the police officer who arrested you & from my experiences less & less people & police are of this opinion. Though sometimes people often believe government propaganda designed to divide & rule,whilst they are being screwed.
Where would the rich be without people with a limited gene pool who unless they get away become dumb or as crazy as their masters.

Gordon Brown


who where what why when how?

26.05.2007 11:47

These questions should always be answered in any journalistic context. In this case the only one answered is when.

Like so many animal rights people, you are so utterly wrapped up in your campaign that you assume the rest of the world knows all about it too. Well guess what? I and probably most other people reading this site don't have A CLUE what it is you are going on about, protesting about or anything. Cricket is a game isn't it? What is it in this context?

IMC admins - why on earth was such a woefully lacking article ever promoted?

clueless


promoting this article WAS a great idea!

29.05.2007 13:39

Clueless said “why on earth was such a woefully lacking article ever promoted?”

Well, probably because it contained good information, even if poorly written. I definitely agree with promoting this article.

BAN FUR!


clueless has a good point

29.05.2007 19:42

This article did need a small amount of explanation. Not everybody is aware of other people's campaigns, and it needed a couple of sentences to explain that this is an anti-fur protest, and that animal rights protestors are being subjected to heavy-handed police attention. Apart from making the article easier to understand, if readers actually know where Cricket is, and what it is, they'll know where to go if they want to support the demonstrators who are being targetted by the police.

Annie Citizen