UK Indymedia | Tibetan "protestors" removed from trafalger square

Tibetan "protestors" removed from trafalger square

police being twats

On Saturday after the main authorised tibet protest march, two protestors stopped to watch the olympics, they happened to be carrying two tibet flags but werent protesting. After a couple of minutes the heritage wardens (the people who supervise the square) asked them to leave, and then proceeded to get the police involved when they said they werent protesting and wouldnt leave....

anyway...5 policeman eventually came down and asked them to leave and threatened to use force...stating that they were enforcing local by-laws (which do exist)....

the irony was that they really werent protesting....yet because the police turned up and treated it as such, thats what it became....!

yah! another ridiculous example of police activity in london....

riku

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18.08.2008 20:48

thanks for putting this up Riku.To clarify a little.when we first entered the square there were 7 of us but five left after the intervention of a couple of Heritage wardens,some lurking security and a community police officer,which left two of us.After singing a line from the current Madonna single "if its against the law arrest me" (at which the Heritage Warden looked horrified ,possibly at my sentiment but more probably at my vocal chords) & a bit of relatively friendly chat with the community police officer i said i intended to stay watching the olympics until 3.00pm.After the 5 police arrived it appeared that they were 4 to 1 in our favour,but had to act on the Heritage Warden's say so.They asked to see the bye law and then showed it to us where it said under Trafalgar Square bye Laws 2002 section 5 part 10 that noone should "take part in a display".we disputed that we were doing any such thing . as i pointed out to the police inspector "what about every design on a T-shirt and the bloke who i saw passing by with an England flag over his shoulder".As far as we were concerned we were just watching the Olympics with our Tibetan flags.After more conflab the police told us they would have to remove us by force.There was no suggestion of arrest so i continued to assume we were not doing anything illegal.however as it was now 5 to 3.00pm the police decided to just wait for our time to leave.i didn't feel that overall the police wanted to be there.
After discussion between the two of us we felt that we were the victims of political discrimination by the GLA.This bye law ,if it means anything,(& such a catch all phrase as "display" hardly suggests it does)is clearly only implemented when it suits the GLA reps.
i'd be surprised if they order out people wearing T-Shirts displaying their affections for football teams or coca-cola.So it depends on the bias of the GLA as expressed through its employees.
As a result of this we decided to go to Parliament Square the next day and raise the Tibetan Flag.This we did yesterday & spent nearly two hours waving Tibetan flags opposite the Houses Of Parliament & Big Ben.About 50 people asked to be photographed with us including people from Russia,Pakistan,and Hong Kong....but no interest whatsoever from the police (& SOCPA).We had wondered whether Tiananmen square & Parliamen square were similar (ie that its illegal in both places to raise the Tibetan flag) but thankfully we found that they are not.
The UK Parliament is a very suitable place to raise the Tibetan Flag because

UK invaded Tibet in 1904.This is important because it means that the UK is the only Western nation that knows that Tibet was an independent nation before its occupation by China.The UK therefore has a huge responsibility to Tibet which the UK avoids.

Gordon Brown failed to meet the Dalai Lama at Downing Street in May.(Since 1959 John Major is the only UK Prime Minister to have received the Dalai Lama at Downing Street).So Gordon Brown its way past time to act for Tibet.

~~^^~~simon

simon
mail e-mail: simongouldd@yahoo.co.uk

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Tibetan "protestors" removed from trafalger square

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