Wow, that was fun!
Hopefully people will post up something more comprehensive soon, but I thought I'd kick off with my feelings about tonight's Stop the BNP action.
Hopefully people will post up something more comprehensive soon, but I thought I'd kick off with my feelings about tonight's Stop the BNP action.
Nick Griffin was scheduled to speak at Kimberly Parish Hall tonight. Things did not go according to how he would have planned.
The hall was surrounded by anti-fascists from well before the event was scheduled to take place. To romantic shouts of 'No Pasaran' and the like the crowd picketed the venue completely.
Shortly after I arrived I saw a police group forming clearly planning to break through the lines of people, but when they tried it they were pushed back.
The anti-fascists massively outnumbered the police as well as the BNP and their supporters. The latter is hard to quantify as the line between BNP supporter and idle onlooker was blurred. This is mainly because the BNP supporters were mainly passive and to be frank vacant. Apart that is from the applause they accompanied every time the police forcibly handled an anti-fascist.
A number of attempts were made by BNP supporters to bust into the meeting and a few got through. Only with the support of some very big police officers who were repeatedly dragging anti-fascists away from their lines.
Police numbers were very low though and they did not really have the resources to make arrests. There were 3 arrests though, mainly around the chaos of a particular scuffle or other. All this resulted in was 2 cautions and 1 released uncharged.
The evening ended with the anti-fascists agreeing to leave. Had they decided to stay it was not at all obvious how Nick Griffin would have been able to leave the building.
I am not sure how many made it into the building in the end, but it can't have been more than about 10 that passed through the lines. This is over a period of more than 2 hours.
Not sure what more to add. I'd recommend against posting photos though. In fact I'd ask that Indymedia moderators take them down if they are posted. Perhaps they could be shown in public at some event in the future, but there's no need to make REdwatch's job too easy.
anyway, my personal gratitude and solidarity to all who were there.
The hall was surrounded by anti-fascists from well before the event was scheduled to take place. To romantic shouts of 'No Pasaran' and the like the crowd picketed the venue completely.
Shortly after I arrived I saw a police group forming clearly planning to break through the lines of people, but when they tried it they were pushed back.
The anti-fascists massively outnumbered the police as well as the BNP and their supporters. The latter is hard to quantify as the line between BNP supporter and idle onlooker was blurred. This is mainly because the BNP supporters were mainly passive and to be frank vacant. Apart that is from the applause they accompanied every time the police forcibly handled an anti-fascist.
A number of attempts were made by BNP supporters to bust into the meeting and a few got through. Only with the support of some very big police officers who were repeatedly dragging anti-fascists away from their lines.
Police numbers were very low though and they did not really have the resources to make arrests. There were 3 arrests though, mainly around the chaos of a particular scuffle or other. All this resulted in was 2 cautions and 1 released uncharged.
The evening ended with the anti-fascists agreeing to leave. Had they decided to stay it was not at all obvious how Nick Griffin would have been able to leave the building.
I am not sure how many made it into the building in the end, but it can't have been more than about 10 that passed through the lines. This is over a period of more than 2 hours.
Not sure what more to add. I'd recommend against posting photos though. In fact I'd ask that Indymedia moderators take them down if they are posted. Perhaps they could be shown in public at some event in the future, but there's no need to make REdwatch's job too easy.
anyway, my personal gratitude and solidarity to all who were there.
RE: Photos of actions
17.10.2007 08:22
Obscuring the identities of activists in photos is standard practice where there is a deeper security culture, in such places as Greece (where they do far more exciting things than just shoving police lines!) After all, it's not just Redwatch who have an interest in identities of activists, but various other state and private security agencies.
Photo monkey
A real success!
17.10.2007 11:17
It's all about numbers and we did well to get such a strong showing, let's make sure future BNP meetings are disrupted in a similar fashion. While I wouldn't want the state to ban any political parties, I'm quite happy for ourselves to reclaim the streets from disgusting rascist bully boys who eat too many pukka pies but think they are well 'ard.
Solid Snake