UK Indymedia : 1999 - 2016
IMC UK | 28.04.2017 20:19 | Indymedia | Birmingham | Cambridge | Liverpool | London | Oxford | Sheffield | South Coast | Wales | World
Open publishing was disabled on this site in mid-July 2016 as there was a very low volume of original grass roots news reports from activists being posted and the collective running the site was dwindling as people were working on other things. From 1st May 2017 this site is a static archive and will no longer be updated.
The history of UK Indymedia is somewhat documented under the Indymedia topic but the full history is yet to be written and perhaps never will be... but this archive will remain available.
See you in the streets!
UK Indymedia
Some of the highpoints and low points that some of the Indymedia activists that are still around recall include:
1999-2000: In the beginning there was Seattle and London
At the start UK Indymedia was London based and the first article was published on 24th November 1999, just a couple of days before the WTO protests in Seattle began.
The first version of the site that we have archived is the Mayday 2000 site, later that year the site was using a content management system which allowed activists to post their own news and the first copy that the Internet Archive has a copy of is from August 2000.
Indymedia was born in the anti-globalization movement and the rising opposition to the then emerging global "war on terror", the key event being the September 11th 2001 attacks in the US and this also, in effect, at least stalled, the anti-globalization movement. The anti-war movement was the current that Indymedia rode in these early years.
2003: War with Iraq and a new site
The start of 2003 was marked with the biggest global protests ever against war with Iraq on 15th February 2003
In mid 2003 the site was relaunched with a new content management system, Mir, and with it regional Kollectives with their own sub-sites, such as Sheffield.
2004-2005: Server seizures and the G8
In September 2004 disks from a couple of servers at Rackspace in London were removed and, we assumed, handed to the FBI, this caused Indymedia sites across the world do go down. The following month there was the European Social Forum in London.
The high point of UK Indymedia was probably the coverage of the protests against the G8 in the UK in 2005.
2006-2008: Protesting the military, borders and climate change
Climate Camp 2006
Climate Camp 2007
Climate Camp 2008
DSEI 2007
Smash EDO 2008
Campaign against Carmel-Agrexco 2008
2009: Another server seizure
Indymedia Server Seizure (Strummer)
2011: Occupy and Indymedia forks
UK Indymedia Network forked: Autonomy for the UK
Past Actions covered
IMC UK