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NATO Hotel infiltrated - "We know where you live."

Anon | 13.12.2007 23:06 | Anti-militarism

NATO big-wigs flew in today and yesterday for the upcoming conference near Edinburgh tomorrow. They are staying in the Edinburgh (Caledonian) Hilton, Lothian Road (you can tell, its the one with all the cops and Special Branch outside). Protestors preparing for the counter-demo tomorrow decided to pay them a visit.

Smartly dressed infiltrators wandered in unhindered, and even asked one cop where the bar was. Leaflets were given out in the bar warning people that war criminals where in the building. Special Branch were only alerted to the incursion after one protestor gave a leaflet to a squadie. On the ball as always...

As well as taking on the bar one person managed to walk through the hotel and found the rooms which the NATO delegates were staying (rooms 206 +). He/she unfurled a banner and hung it on a banister facing the hall-way, before leaving the building without the police even registering there was anything amiss.

Outside, simultaneously, protestors unfurled a banner and started singing songs. Minutes later vans of police arrived to deal with this embarrassing situation by moving everyone across the street away from the Hilton entrance. "You're allowed to have your protest, just over the other side of the road." Officer A 2447 was particularly rough when escorting people across the street. They then erected a barrier as a designated protest zone.

The protestors decided that standing in a pen wasn't much fun and tried to leave, but the evidence gathering police turned up and made sure that everyone in grabbing distance was pushed back into the pen to have their names and addresses taken (but some got away). They were unsure which law, if any, gave them this right, but didn't really seem to care.

All in all, they seemed chaotic, confused and slow to react. Security was laughable. Will tomorrows conference be any different? This reporter recons that anyone with a fancy car will have little problem driving right in.

Anon

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Diversion worked then ?

14.12.2007 07:57

So once again a self congraulatory email is posted to Indymedia full of nonsense about how the hotel was infiltrated. This regular pattern of events is now getting pathetic, the hotel is not where the delegates are staying, it never was and it never will be. The delegates are staying on the army base where the conference is being held.

This is the same tactic used in the past. A diversion hotel is established, a couple of leaks to activist groups are made and once again some bunch fools for it. In the meantime the cops are maughing at us.

As long as we are easily pushed around like this nobody is going to take us seriously.

M


NATO demo in Edinburgh

16.12.2007 17:04

Why was nothing about this story printed in the Edinburgh newspapers?

Wyn Campbell


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