Sadly indymedia was a casualty of the heavy, illogical and indiscriminate policing operation surrounding Climate Camp, and Sipson village in particular. The satellite truck and its power supply were caught up in a massive and pointless traffic jam.
Linda McCutcheon pleads with police
and eventually gets her prescription filled
so campers are forced to carry stuff to site
Local people - even kids turned out to help
Some people could go where they pleased
And it is inconsistent. Some vehicles pass through without interference - witness the Rolls Royce - yet any vehicle that might be deemed to belong to a camper is stopped and searched.
This led to a massive traffic jam around midday. Vans destined for Climate Camp were backed up along Sipson Road awaiting search, local residents fumed with rage as they were unable to go about their business.
Terry McCutcheon was taken ill in the night. With only a single kidney the fact that he was diagnosed as having a urinary infection was very serious. His wife Linda needed to take his prescription to the chemists in Harlington - the other side of Climate Camp.
Only after a lengthy pleading with police - see pictures - was she allowed to drive along the lane to get her husband's drugs.
Meanwhile anyone arriving in a vehicle for Climate Camp was being refused entry. Food and sanitation supplies were halted - everything had to be unloaded at the roadblock and carried or dragged to the site - half a mile away. Families - kids crying at the roadside - were forced to abandon their vehicles and carry their possessions, often in several trips, to the camp.
Local residents came out of their homes offering food and drinks to stranded campers. Some even offered to help transport goods to the camp, including one gutsy ten year old (pictured).
Later in the day some vehicles were permitted to drive to - but not onto - the camp. Indymedia's trucks arrived in this way at around 7pm and a call went out to help unload and carry the tents and equipment onto the camp. Dozens responded, including a team of kids with wheelbarrows shifting the stuff across the site.
Meanwhile "BAA logistics director, Shaun Cowlam, said he was concerned the protest could distract police from counter-terrorism".
So why, local residents ask, are the police harassing their community instead of policing the airport? Why are there road blocks in the villages preventing people reaching a protest camp that the High Court has already deemed to be legal?
Climate Camp "officially" begins tomorrow. Indymedia now has connectivity, and there are plenty of people with contributions to make to the debate.
Watch this space.
Comments
Hide the following 15 comments
Keep FIT report them..
13.08.2007 23:35
Heathrow protesters 'may stage bomb hoax'
By David Millward, Transport Correspondent
Last Updated: 7:38pm BST 13/08/2007
A hard core of anarchist demonstrators are drawing up plans to bring Heathrow to a standstill using an array of tactics including disguising themselves as ordinary holidaymakers to cause havoc in the airport terminals
The Daily Telegraph has learned that protesters are smuggling smart clothes into the "climate camp" in an attempt to sidestep police and security staff and get into the terminals and office buildings.
Nuff said so ll do a track for the next week and keep adding comments to the no dubt various post bookmark web page and if you are haveing hassels geting indymedia try this
http://publish.indymedia.org.uk
or goto here http://bristol.indymedia.org/
I wanted to start Sunday but Sheffield was floooded a while back and this weekend was floody hell a weekend piss up and today i needed to have a walk..
mozaz
0742
e-mail: worldwarfree@riseup.net
Homepage: http://www.flickr.com/groups/copswithcameras/
What a load of rubbish!
14.08.2007 01:33
Frank
frankly
14.08.2007 04:24
Seems like collective punishment of the village
for resisting corporate tyranny.
W
Great reporting and pics.
14.08.2007 07:39
Guido
Everbody has an angle
14.08.2007 08:29
IndyMedia - independant from impartiallity.
Fank en Stein
Get down there
14.08.2007 09:02
Every other house in the village displays a No Third Runway poster, every third lampost does likewise. the locals are 95% behind the camp and firmly against the idiocy of building a third runway at Heathrow.
So to Frank, and any doubters check it out for yourself.
John Morgan
Journo tours?
14.08.2007 09:39
Charlotte Gill & Nick McDermott of the Hate Mail / Evading Standards behind story - "£7m bill to control militants' plot to paralyse Heathrow with hoax bombs" - or maybe they got the idea from the arrested Daily Mirror bomb hoax journos ( a newspaper group that claimed the Wombles were going to gas Dublin! ). Came up on Newsnight where, again, the only apparent source is the ES. Posh George aquitted himself quite well there.
( Distruption/Climate Change death!s!!!)
BTW Are these lying journo-fuckwits gettting the guided tour today?
mark
Spread the word to the unconverted Daily Mail readers
14.08.2007 10:16
In particular I was reading their readers comments on the Climate Camp. All very one sided and anti-Climate Camp. I think we need a few counter comments!
So if you are thinking about spreading the message try following the following link and commenting there.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=475039&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments
WE CAN WIN THIS!
Bernie
I feel dirty
14.08.2007 11:10
Norman Mail-er
ditto great reporting and pics
14.08.2007 12:57
kriptick
Daily Mail
14.08.2007 13:45
Steve
lo!
14.08.2007 14:24
What do you have to say about that Fank M Stein?
Norman Mail-er
Just posted this on the Daily Mail site... bet it won't get published!
14.08.2007 16:47
Deal with it you generalisers - we are ordinary people from a diverse range of backgrounds, we have jobs, and we are prepared to use up our own holiday time to get off our backsides and do something about an issue we care about.
If we were setting up a protest camp to complain about immigrants, you'd soon change your tune.
Instead of slinging playground insults at people who's concerns you don't care about, how about actually debating the science and the politics surrounding the huge issue that is climate change?
Writing that climate change is a "COMPLETE MYTH" in capitals hardly smacks of a considered or informed viewpoint either!
100 years of weather station data from all over the globe and the largest scientific concensus in history - face up to it!
Dave
Daily Hate Mail readers
14.08.2007 17:21
spartaca
1984...
14.08.2007 17:40
why just go for two minutes hate when you can spend half and hour reading the daily mail?
*sigh* :(
hurray for climate camp :)
x
oh, my