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SchNEWS 743: Leicester Is More

SchNEWS 743 | 14.10.2010 21:05 | Anti-racism | Culture | Globalisation | Iraq | Migration | Palestine | Repression | Social Struggles | South Coast | World

A thousand EDL supporters rampaged through the streets of Leicester on Saturday (9th), attacking locals, anti-fascists and police.

On the Newswire: 1



Over 2,000 police from 13 forces were waiting to corral the EDL and the 700 UAF counter-protesters into opposing pens, separated by police and three-metre steel fences. The leaguers immediately began to hurl bottles, cans, bricks and coins at police and the UAF.

Despite their numbers, the police struggled to contain the frothing thugs and three times they burst through police lines and poured out onto the streets. With around 200 breaking loose, packs of EDL staggered through the city, sporadically clashing with local black and Asian youths.

One group of EDL supporters smashed the windows of a fast-food restaurant before kicking open the door and threatening the families eating inside. Another group attacked the International Arts Centre Fabrika, smashing the windows and trying to break into the building as staff fled through the back door.

Police arrested 17 leaguers and there were a number of injuries, including one police officer who suffered a broken leg in a skirmish.

The police rounded up the feral fash before they managed to force their way into Asian and black estates, where, in a number of areas, the residents were waiting. When rumours circulated that the EDL were headed for the Highfields estate, hundreds of residents assembled outside the African Caribbean Centre to defend their neighbourhood.

Anti-fascist opposition in the city centre however, was limited and the local youths on the streets were, for the most part, chased away.

*Before the demo began, around 10 EDL coaches had stopped in nearby Market Harborough. The flash-mob of around 500 EDLers was cordoned off by 100 police. After about an hour and a half, bored of the kettle, they got back on their coaches and turned back.

Also in SchNEWS 743: Hammering Home the Point - Latest Smash EDO demo kicks off, but 50 are arrested 'preventatively' in heavy policing operation. | No Surrender Monkeys - General strike sees over three million people down tools in France | Hunt Intensifies - Police and bailiffs illegally begin eviction at Huntington Lane anti-coal action camp | Calais: Burning Issues - Drunken racists torch Calais migrants camps | Crude But Effective - Crude Awakening climate change protests to kick off in London this Saturday (Oct 16th) | SchNEWS In Brief 743 - Edinburgh students storm BAE stand at careers fair and other direct action shorts... | And Finally - Internet company get the public to monitor live CCTV feeds for money.

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Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

arm

16.10.2010 21:27

Great article on Smash EDO .
"This is one of the first times this police tactic of mass preventative arrests has been used in the UK, following widespread use in Brussels at the No Borders camp and in Copenhagen."
It's not the first time; 100 demonstrartors were preventatively arrested before the Radcliffe climate demo for instance.

the chair


radcliffe? surely not

19.10.2010 17:14

Radcliffe?
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radcliffe,_Greater_Manchester
...I think you mean Ratcliffe! :)

pedant


Bus companies complicit in transport of fascists?

29.10.2010 16:09

If anybody saw Manchester-based bus company Finglands transporting down members of the EDL please get in contact with me. I am looking into this for an independent publication. You can send me an email: malenky [at] hotmail.co.uk

James
mail e-mail: malenky [at] hotmail.co.uk


FAO: The Chair

04.11.2010 18:57

"16.10.2010 21:27
Great article on Smash EDO .
"This is one of the first times this police tactic of mass preventative arrests has been used in the UK, following widespread use in Brussels at the No Borders camp and in Copenhagen."
It's not the first time; 100 demonstrartors were preventatively arrested before the Radcliffe climate demo for instance.

the chair"

Precisely the reason it says 'one of the first times' not 'the first time'.

Jo