despite high court hearings today and the PASRA law effectively on hold, the metropolitan police and westminster council have begun a forceful operation this evening to remove tents and other structures from around the parliament square protest.

later on i will be posting a report on today's court proceedings, but briefly, maria gallestegui's 'peace strike' scored a victory against westminster council in court today which was thought likely to apply to ALL the protestors in parliament square.

however, this evening, dozens of police, two police lorries, an ambulance, and two forward intelligence teams have turned up and launched a strike against the more than decade long continuous 'parliament square peace campaign', removing any items that could be used to facilitate sleeping (which is the criterion under the new repressive PASRA legislation) as well as any megaphones or sound-amplifying equipment.

it is despicable that they should do this before legal arguments are heard on the compatibility of the new law with human rights, and they've picked one of the coldest nights of the season to conduct their gestapo-like sortie.

(the gestapo law passed by the german government in 1936 gave the gestapo carte blanche to operate without judicial oversight, exempted from responsibility to the administrative courts)