not to sure of these numbers

they arrested people and released them pretty much straight after.

an acquaintance of mine was arrested 3 times

are these counted to the total arrests?

If the police were arresting, releasing and rearresting then it is clear they were either failing in their duty to keep the peace or they had a concerted strategy of blowing the whole event out of proportion.

Given the large BNP presence in Greater Manchester Police - I'm going for failure of duty.

When the BBC is guilty of misreporting like this, always complain! If pressed hard enough they will change online news articles, and sometimes TV news as well. Their online journalists almost always rely on other sources and their errors may be the result of ignorance rather than deliberate misrepresentation. If everybody on Indymedia gets on the phone when this kind of thing happens it will have an effect. Do it now!

There was a big national Demoagainst the privatisation of Water, yesterday in Rome.
I heard that there was also another demo but not sure what it was about. Today I found out on the BBC's website, it was reported as a mass demo in support of the PM aka Burlesque Clown, no mention of the anti water demo.

At the same time in Milano another Demo was going off this one an anti mafia rally "To remember the victims of the mafia" with independent reports of 150.000 + taking part. No mention on the BBC of course.

The Police in Rome estimate 150.000 at the pro mafia (Berlusconi) rally, so there were probably around 15.000 as the cops do tend to exaggerate x 10.

thanks

It is only the SWP who are saying that UAF supporters outnumbered EDL supporters.

Infact, I heard from two different people on the ground yesturday that there were more EDL people than UAF; apparantly, according to one witness, most EDL supporters did not even get anywhere near Victoria Sq, held and no doubt surrounded by police in the approach to Victoria Square on Knowsley St from the south of the city. Another group coming from the north of the city were surrounded by police; a group of local muslim youth confronted this group, who rose to the challenge in response, but were reported to have been beaten back by police (emphasising that there are 2 sides to the story regarding reports of police accommodation of EDL supporters).

To give the UAF some credit, yesturday's demo was actually well planned by UAF; there had been a decision to split into two groups to stop the two main access routes through Victoria Square so that the EDL route was completely cut off in both directions, and UAF occupied the square. In actual fact, the police enforced this situation, separating a smaller group off from most people in the square. This group then moved as one large block to the top of Knowlsey St - the top of the shopping pedestrianised area (though, as usual, because the SWP hierarchical command structure is so inflexible, this smaller group served no purpose after a while - pleas to SWP lieutenants on the ground fell on death-ears as several of us remonstrated that much of that body of people could have been more usefully confrontational at another location in an adjacent street; after an hour, this was no longer possible as police surrounded them).

Dudley and Bradford coming up. We need more people on our side than we had at Bolton. defence may need to also be stepped up for individual local groups after the incident at the UAF meeting in Bristol and EDL's seeming ability to employ more inventive tactics. Last year, an UAF coach was attacked by fash in London intending to leave for Codnor; one person was badly injured and the coach put out of service. Legal defence and anti-fash monitors are needed.