Saturday was great, and totally unexpected too.

The deadlock at Charing X was finally broken when CND stewards made a deal with the police: the sit-down people could disperse, but only if they were first marched back to George square by an unbroken line of police officers. The stewards agreed to the deal, though not everyone at the sit down was happy about it. At that point (1.5 hours into the sitdown), the police were intimidating but they hadn't even asked us to move yet. The march back to George Square went as slow as they could make it, probably it was deliberately intended to sap our enthusiasm and stop us doing any more direct action later.

Police were unbelievably heavy handed on Saturday. Several people I met had been hit in the face several times with truncheons, and when we were breaking through the lines their was the risk of being kicked by police horses. (What kind of idiot decided to bring horses into that situation?)

By the way, there were two men arrested on Thursday outside the army recruitment office. One of them was only a teenager. Another person almost got lifted for picking up an empty bucket which had allegedly contained fake blood. The two who were arrested were brought to the Sheriff court on Friday, and released on bail with the additional condition that they couldn't enter Queen Street (where the recruitment office is). The older guy was "missing" when I left the protest on Saturday, so probably the police have picked him up again on another stupid charge, and he'll be in real trouble now.

Others who were arrested at Charing X on Thursday, many of them young, were beaten in police custody. One boy showed my friend the bruises all over his belly from where the police had kicked him. Police racism was very evident on both days, with a disproportionate number of young Muslim men being arrested.

The people who were arrested on Saturday will probably be at the Glasgow Sherrif Court this Monday, 24th January. If anyone knows the time they're appearing could they post it here? We should all go along and support them. With the way the police are acting, we'll probably all have our turn of being arrested soon enough....

I managed to get to the protest in George Square, Glasgow on Saturday, the entire Strathclyde police force had turned out to greet me, I wonder what the criminally minded of Glasgow made of this fine oppertunity. There were not only an incredible number of highly visable flourescent covered filth on foot but I couldn't help noticing the many very strategically placed mounted police, motor cycle posse's & vans. The march itself wound around the streets that surround the square(approx 1 square mile), we were contained by an unbroken circle of yellow vests, 3 deep in places, there were also officers who escorted us & walked along side, I commented to one that it really was thoughtful of him to join in our demonstration
I got the feeling they wanted us to know that they were ready & capable to deal with any overstepping of the mark swiftly & if necessary forcefully
at the same time however it was apparent by their demeanor that we were more than welcome to hold a peaceful protest. I got the impression that the idea was by ensuring we were demonstrating in a nice peaceful & orderly fashion we should be allowed our 'little spectacle' (biggest antiwar demos in time of war in this country BTW) without drawing too much hulabaloo & public/media interest. There has been a distinct lack of coverage on the news about any of the protests in my opinion.
I was leaving to get my bus home around the time that the group made a break for the Cross but I witnessed the charge of mounted police, motorcycle police & vans chasing the protesters.

The nine people arrested on Saturday are all appearing at Glasgow Sherriff Court on Thursday 27th March. Hearings start at 9.30am.

Please come along and support them if you can make it.

(NB. Stay quiet in the public gallery itself as we want them to get bail and if the Sherriff gets pissed off he won't grant it).

Tightening the screw: police-state cracks down on anti-war protests
Eyewitness correspondent Tom Graham reports from the frontline on the
streets of Glasgow

SATURDAY 22 MARCH 2003 marks a sad day in the history of Glasgow. It was a day that started off so well, but ended so badly. In fact nearly
tragically.
Marching from George Square around the city centre, traffic was brought
to a halt as an estimated 15,000 thronged the streets to join the Stop
the War Coalition’s call for an end to hostilities.
Attended by people from all walks of life, ranging from pensioners to
students, a massive rally then followed in the shadow of the City Chambers.
Key-note speakers included the city’s Muslim MP Mohammad Sarwar, Canon Kenyon Wright and Scottish Socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan. All universally lambasted the recent pre-emptive strikes by coalition forces and thethreat to civilians that has seen the streets of Baghdad turned into a
firestorm.
OVERKILL
Recent demonstrations in the City have seen sit-down protests on the
city’s motorway and commuter routes and activists draw attention to blood
spilt on the streets of Iraq through the highly innovative use of red paint!
However, fears of a police crackdown following massive disruption to
commuter traffic proved well-founded in a police presence on the day of
the march on the streets of Glasgow not seen by many in living memory.
With global demonstrations growing more strident, leading to recent
deaths, an estimated 1200 police officers were drafted in, in what many
commentators see as “overkill”, which saw the City Halls bizarrely
converted into a make-shift jail as a contingency measure.
In addition, many officers were seen in possession of CS canisters,
with teams of officers managing Tear Gas launchers. The Riot Video
Surveillance Unit were also seen in attendance.
A spokesman for Strathclyde Police has of course denied many
eyewitnesses claims, maintaining the halls were only being used for
“feeding and toileting of officers”.
Located in Glasgow’s Candleriggs, ironically the City Halls is where
the acclaimed social campaigner John MacLean is commemorated – once
imprisoned for one year - who fought for human rights and free speech
there at the turn of the century.
PEACEFUL
Much of the advertising for the day’s event promised a day of “civil
disobedience”, and it is thought that this and the more active nature of
recent protests led to the police precautions.
The official march and rally passed peacefully though, with speakers
gaining rapturous applause.
An “unofficial” march arranged to mark the end of the event saw
families and Saturday shoppers left bemused as a massive crowd,
diminished over the afternoon of the event but still 2000 strong, making
their way along the city’s St Vincent Street towards Charing Cross.
ANGER
The earlier conviviality of the day’s event was soon replaced by anger
though, as the crowd, unable to continue marching, were cut in two by
police road blocks.
Trapped by police standing three deep and supported by officers and
horses from the forces mounted cavalry brigade, protesters moods soon
turned to outrage as the march was brought to a standstill.
Hemmed in between the Holland and Elmbank Street sections of
Sauchiehall Street, marchers, local shoppers and residents alike reacted
with fury as movement out of the street was blocked for nearly two hours.
In angry scenes, families with children who happened to be in the area,
along with pedestrians and marchers alike, were informed they would not
be allowed to leave the street.
Those who attempted to were blocked by a human wall of both police and
horses. Many who tried to do so were nearly killed by horses panicking
amidst the scrum.
BRUTALITY
Amongst those caught up in events was Scottish National Party MSP Fiona
McLeod who has called for a public inquiry.
Also present was author AL Kennedy who lambasted police tactics at the
event, as being calculated to create “a violent confrontation; their
behaviour was antagonistic.”
Fiona McLeod MSP is currently awaiting a written response from the
Chief Constable of Strathclyde Police, although there were growing calls
this week for a fuller-scale investigation into police brutality at
Saturday’s anti-war rally in Glasgow.
Eventually the police negotiated a peaceful dispersal of the crowd.
There were few arrests.
With anti-war protests set to continue this Saturday in Edinburgh, in a
statement today police have officially announced their growing
determination to suppress and quell the tide of demonstrations in
Scotland, in particular to minimise traffic disruption.
Time will tell who the winner will be. One things for sure, the
foundation stones of our inalienable human right in Scotland to peaceful
protest have sure got a lot shakier.

FOLLOWING THE COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES in Iraq the Glasgow Stop the War Coalition held a march and rally in Glasgow city centre, which although I hadn’t planned to, I ended up in attending. The day, which started off so well, ended so badly. In fact nearly tragically. This is my story.

I am sure I speak for many in saying that Glasgow hasn’t seen such scenes
in living memory. Effectively a state of Martial Law was declared on
Saturday. The number of police, thought to be in the region of 1200, on
the streets of Glasgow leaves one speechless. Many people I spoke to,
including pensioners have never seen such scenes in their lives. Not
even at potentially charged Old Firm matches have we seen such a
presence. The police were quite simply preparing for, indeed planting
the seeds for - for their own nefarious purposes - A RIOT.

I am not by any stretch of the imagination an anti-war campaigner, indeed
a specific campaigner on anything, but after taking my usual morning’s
walk in Glasgow Green, and walking into town up Albion Street, I was
quite simply flabbergasted. Standing more or less the entire length and
breadth of Albion Street, a distance of about a quarter of a mile, were
highly visible police officers in fluorescent tabards. Van after van
after van, of police vans, hired vans, coaches lined the streets. When I
remembered hearing there was a rally in George Square that afternoon, I
realised that this might be what was behind the police presence. But
that however, didn’t explain the numbers. Something was afoot. The
stage was being set for the biggest police show in history. And a pretty
dastardly one at that.

As I passed the rear entrance to the City Halls - where the acclaimed
early 20th Century human rights campaigner John MacLean is commemorated in a plaque, one that also marks his imprisonment for his concerns – a sea of activity was in evidence there with police coming and going.

It appeared that this was being used as some sort of base for police
activity that day. Many people I spoke to advised me that they observed
signs on passing - inside the entrance - signs directing officers where
to take prisoners. The police have denied this claiming that the City
Halls were simply being used “for the feeding and toileting of officers”.

It would be interesting to find out whether they obtained permission from
the City Council for this use of the building and if so from whom. Also
how taxpayers were paid for this use, (if they were paid at all!)

My appetite sated, I thought, “what is this all about”. There must be
something to all this anti-war malarkey. And what were the police
expecting to happen to justify all this. A police operation, that in my
estimation, based on staff salaries and overtime etc, will have cost in
the region of £350,000.

As I passed up Cochrane Street, the same scenes that were in evidence in
Albion Street were witnessed here. Montrose Street to George Squares
North Frederick Street boundary. Wall to wall police. One after the
other after the other. Standing shoulder to shoulder, one abreast. At
that section alone there were about 200. Albion Street, 300. Around
each corner of the square itself, and all around the sides, roughly 100
in each. Another 400. What was going on?

As I approached George Square, the sounds of seagulls cries filled the
air. Up above a seagull had managed to get one of its wings impaled on a
lightning conductor. Crows and other seagulls, ruthless cannibals that
they can be, circled already trying to eat him, pecking at his vulnerable
limbs. A bad omen, rather reminiscent of the cordons of police
encircling the anti-war campaigners. A policeman whispered to his female
colleague who was looking rather nervous, “when the riot breaks out,
stick with me.” ‘When’ the riot breaks out. What did they know about
their plans for later that afternoon, that the public could only speculate on.

A few rows of police along, I also observed many officers with video
equipment and cameras, used to film riots so they can identify “culprits”
later, something I have only ever seen in London. Later that day, I
would also learn from people that they had observed units of police,
ready to use CS and Tear gas.

This operation, was hours, days in the planning. Involving seasoned
crowd control experts and army military tacticians. The police, planning
to circumvent by hook or by crook, any attempt by any unofficial march
following the rally, to bring the city streets to a standstill again,
focussed on Charing Cross and the motorway, was carved in stone. It was
a plan that would have no chance of failure. The streets of Glasgow had
been thoroughly mapped out, and all likely routes of the unofficial march
and any quasi-legal civil disobedience protests by the peace campaigners,
had been researched, considered, evaluated, then reconsidered. All
eventualities had been thoroughly envisioned and planned for.

The peace campaigners would be hemmed in, cut off and diverted on a
pre-arranged route. There would be no going back. Plans were laid out
to close off sections of the streets of Glasgow, in the absence of any
appropriate cause that would justify such an action - nuclear, biological
or civil emergency. Citizens of Glasgow and the UK, shoppers, residents,
campaigners exercising their legal right to walk, move and travel up a
public street were to be summarily imprisoned for several hours in a city
street. At one section, police officers standing three abreast at
Holland Street. Further back in case they “broke out” and dared to
exercise their legal rights to walk and shop and talk down the once proud
safe and free boulevard of Sauchiehall Street, at Pitt Street, a further
barricade numbering about the same, about 100 officers.

The same at Elmbank Street and North Street, with an additional line of
mounted cavalry travelling down Sauchiehall Street towards Holland
Street, to block the street in a line of horses standing front to back.
This line moved in tight against the crowd, a crowd numbering about 500.
No one within the crowd had room to manoeuvre. It didn’t need to be, but
it was made that way by the police, this was standing room only, a crush
and a frightening one at that. Gradually this line of horses was
squeezed in further to cause further alarm and seriously place members of
the crowd right next to the horses in danger of being trampled to death.
Many of the horses reared up on their hind legs. The police were to get
their photographs to justify this behaviour. The reason they had blocked
off this street was because there was a demonstration.

There was not a demonstration here beforehand. A quiet street moving
freely on a sleepy Saturday afternoon beforehand. But now there was “a
demonstration”. Or at least all the superficial appearances of one.
One protestor was observed hitting a horse with a placard. These people
were rioting. That is why they, the police, were here and blocked off
the street, to protect people. No announcements were made by anyone in
any authority, placing great fear and alarm on the crowd about what might
happen next. People asking the police to excuse them and allow them
past, were met with no other response than refusal and that they can’t.
No explanation was proffered as to why and when people would be able to
get past. Telephone calls to the local police office met with a similar
version of the read between the lines silent tautology in evidence above
“as far as the police are concerned there was a demonstration in the
street, and until the demonstration dispersed, no one would be allowed to
leave.” How a demonstration (if this was a demonstration!) is able to
disperse when they are not being allowed to disperse is beyond me.

Eventually, a senior officer braved the crowds and came in to negotiate,
and asked to speak to someone in charge but was informed by stewards,
that officially there was no one in charge. This officer was very calm
and relaxed and very easy to talk to. I don’t know his name, but he’s
the one you see on the TV being interviewed a lot, the one with a scar on
his left cheek. Eventually I managed to get my voice heard, and
suggested could it not be possible for people who wish to leave identify
themselves in one corner of the street, and those who didn’t identify
themselves in another. I would later learn from reading and collating
international press coverage around the world of other demonstrations
that police tactics at the protests were practically the same all around
the world. Herd like cattle. Divide and conquer. Staged dispersal of
crowd. A few minutes later he announced that anyone wishing to leave the
area should make their way to the left corner at Holland Street. I moved
my way towards that area and fortunately was first in the queue. I asked
an officer there, when we would be able to leave. He said he wouldn’t.
Someone else explained what the senior officer had just explained. I
asked if their orders to allow members of the public to stand aside and
let people leave, would be phoned in. I received a characteristically
belligerent “Glesga polis” response - “whit phones, I don’t see any fones!”

A minute or two later, the same officer arrived and instructed officers
to create a corridor to allow 20 people every 5 minutes through.

I made my way down Sauchiehall Street. Breathing the fresh air. The
buildings somewhat lower than the section of the street we were at
allowed the warm soothing rays of the sun to shine down into the street.
People shopped, completely unaware of the human rights abuses taking
place a few streets hence. They would go home and eat and sleep,
continuing to believe that all was right with the world. That the police
were honest people, that would catch the criminals from that dreadful
housing scheme round the corner, that might steal my new DVD player,
people carrier or garden lawnmower. Maybe tell my children the time if
they get lost in town, pat them on the head and see them home safe.

I on the other hand would go home in shock at how easily employees of the
state “following orders” would rob me of my human rights, to walk down a
city street, and breath the clean, fresh air, something we do every day,
but a right that we take for granted. And imprison me and endanger my life.

I never want to see scenes like that in Glasgow again.