UK Newswire Archive
Brighton Mayday! Sat April 30th, 12 noon
19-04-2011 11:20
Mass party & protest. 30th April 2011. Central Brighton, 12 noon. Location and details TBA.LONDON LIBYA PROTEST: 19 APRIL
19-04-2011 11:08
Come to Downing Street at 5pm today to protest against the bombing of Libya, the slaughter of innocent civilians and the imperialist interference of US UK and France! Don't let STW go there by themselves!Iranian Asylum Seekers on hunger strike, who have stitched their mouth
19-04-2011 10:19
6 Iranians have been on hunger strike since 05/04.2011.It started on 05 April by 7 people in front t of the Amnesty International office in London.
Dublin's Joe Black performs "Giuseppe Conlon" song for Gareth Peirce in London
19-04-2011 09:29
Progressive forces in Glasgow unite to demand "Hands off protest!"
19-04-2011 09:23
GLASGOW DEFENCE CAMPAIGN
http://glasgowdefencecampaign.blogspot.com/
Progressive forces in Glasgow unite to demand 'Hands off protest!'
BP Protest Flashmob at Tate Modern
18-04-2011 21:22
BP sponsorship protest at tate modern, see http://london.indymedia.org/articles/8748
Nottingham, Sheffield, & West Yorkshire Sabs Sept 2010-March 2011 Report
18-04-2011 21:01
Anarchists plan to target the royal wedding
18-04-2011 19:05
Scotland Yard officers are working urgently to identify the extremists who clashed with police and attacked landmarks on Saturday March 26 before they can strike again. Commander Bob Broadhurst, the head of public order for the Metropolitan Police, warned that the anarchists would be "deliberately targeting" the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton on April 29.The Cuts in Manchester: Fighting Back
18-04-2011 18:23
Manchester Coalition Against Cuts held a rally of organisations fighting local spending cuts at Central Hall in the Northern Quarter on 11th April. Coalition members were prominent in the attempt to stop Manchester City Council's budget meeting in March. They did not quite succeed, but that setback has not ended the campaign; quite the opposite.Global Petition: End Fukushima's Deadly Radioactive Fallout! Entomb Fukushima No
18-04-2011 17:26
Chorlton Green Festival
18-04-2011 17:22
Chorlton held its third green festival last Saturday at St Clements Church.Royal Wedding: Engineering a Spectacle
18-04-2011 16:13
Palestine Today 04 18 2011
18-04-2011 15:38
Mayday benefit gig for Student Protest Legal Campaign
18-04-2011 14:57
We are teaming up with 'London Celtic Punks' for what promises to be our best gig to date! It will be a benefit for the Student Protest Solidarity Campaign in association with the Legal Defence and Monitoring Group. The following day is a bank holiday so we don't intend to finish very early....
Meeting against the Dispersal Order
18-04-2011 14:23
Say No to the Dispersal Order meeting.Sunday April 24th from midday, come to the Nottingham Solidarity Cafe at the Sumac Centre, 245 Gladstone Street.
A dispersal order has been placed on Forest Fields. It is aimed at groups of two or more people, or anyone under 16. It means that if you're standing on the street with friends and neighbours the police are allowed to ask you to move along. If you don't then it's a criminal offence. This is another example of police harassing the local community.
Let's work out together what we can do about this.We'll be meeting at the Sumac Centre on midday this Sunday 24th of April
Police "too focused on kettling"
18-04-2011 13:25
Senior police officers focused too much on "kettling" during the march against government spending cuts last month, human rights campaigners have said.
A review by 120 legal observers from Liberty said the containment tactic was "under near constant consideration" when potential trouble spots emerged.
It said the tactic undermined trust between peaceful protesters and police.
But it also said the police response to the TUC march in London was "in general proportionate".
Liberty was invited to observe the march by the TUC and Scotland Yard.
Kettling is a police tactic in which protesters are contained in one area by a cordon of officers.
Liberty's report and the observers' role was restricted to the policing of the official TUC "March for the Alternative" event, on 26 March.
"It was not within our remit to observe the policing of events after the TUC march, or completely extraneous to it," the observers say.
A total of 201 arrests were made on the day but these were at protests separate from the official anti-government cuts rally. In Piccadilly, shops and banks were attacked, and damage was caused to the Ritz hotel.
Most of the arrests - 145 - were made after campaign group UK Uncut staged a sit-in at a luxury store Fortnum & Mason in protest over alleged tax avoidance by part-owners of the business.
Trouble also flared in central London in Oxford Street and Trafalgar Square.
'Restrained and proportionate'
The legal observers were posted along the march, which was the biggest trade union event for 20 years, and the biggest protest in London since the 2003 anti-war march.
The TUC estimated that the five-hour march attracted between 250,000 and 500,000 people, with 4,500 police officers involved in the whole operation.
The report said there was "no doubt that the official trade union-led demonstration was overwhelmingly civil, peaceful and good-natured and that the police response was in general proportionate".
At some points, observers praised the police's restraint when faced with "some provocation".
However it also criticised the police for "too great a focus of police attention" on kettling.
Liberty's position is that the tactic is fatally flawed by the inevitability of detaining the innocent with the guilty.
But in the police control room there seemed to be "continual expectation that a containment would be imposed at some point".
"The question seemed to be more 'when' than 'if'," it said.
Communication problems
It said protesters had become wary of the possibility of being kettled and it appeared to "seriously to undermine the relationship of trust and confidence between peaceful protesters and the police".
"The possibility of mass containment of peaceful protesters has undoubtedly had a chilling effect on many people's rights to freedom of expression and assembly," it added.
It questioned why such a "blunt, resource-heavy, and logistically difficult tactic" had become "such a favoured tactic in the policing of protest".
The report on the event also said some officers had to use mobile phones because their police radios failed to work properly, hampering their ability to deal with breakaway groups.
Scotland Yard welcomed the report.
Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens said: "We were faced with the difficult task of striking the right balance between ensuring the vast majority of people were able to peacefully protest whilst managing the small number of criminals intent on disorder.
"In what was a significant and challenging policing operation we welcome Liberty's overall conclusion that the policing was proportionate."
HSBC3 Defence Campaign
18-04-2011 13:24
The HSBC 3 Defence Campaign was set up last December to defend three activists arrested on the 18th December at a protest against tax avoidance, on a UKUncut national day of action. The protest was lively but peaceful, and occupied many relevant shops and businesses supporting the cuts - including Mark's and Spencer, Boots, and Vodaphone. The three activists were targeted by the police to end the protest, to intimidate and deter young people from protesting against the government's savage public spending cuts.
Mark Pearson was the first to be arrested, accused of 'Breaking the conditions' imposed upon a demonstration. Patrick Reay was then arrested for apparently obstructing the arrest of Mark, and Toby Hobbs was arrested 4 days later whilst manning a Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! stall, accused of obstructing the arrest of Patrick. Mark and Patrick were both given harsh bail conditions, banning them from the city centre, in a clear attempt to prevent their attendance at further protests. The arrests were transparently political in nature, and are part of a worrying trend of systematic police repression against anyone taking direct action against the cuts.
Ratcliffe protesters encouraged to appeal
18-04-2011 13:19
The 20 protesters convicted of 'conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass' at the Ratcliffe power station are being invited to appeal because of Mark Kennedy's involvement (link below).
