Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Solidarity with Revolt in Greece, Dalston, London, Sun 14 Dec

Peter Marshall | 15.12.2008 19:29 | Repression | Social Struggles | World

Several hundred supporters of Greek students and workers demonstrating against the Greek police came to Dalston in north London, where their attempt to hold a protest march was stopped by police.

Police try to persuade man to remove mask
Police try to persuade man to remove mask

Police grab man when he fails to remove mask
Police grab man when he fails to remove mask

Police search man who they allege punched police
Police search man who they allege punched police

Terrorism is the Police in our Street
Terrorism is the Police in our Street

And now I'm on video again
And now I'm on video again


It was in some way appropriate that a demonstration in support of Greek anarchists provoked by the Athens police killing a 15 year old youth should end up with a stand-off between demonstrators and police.

When I arrived at Dalston Kingsland around 2.30pm there were already around 50 demonstrators there, mainly those connected with Greek students and workers, but also some anarchists with several banners. They were rather outnumbered by police and community support workers and were simply waiting for the march to start, causing no problems, not even obstructing the pavement or the access to the Overground station.

Had the march been allowed to start, they and the other couple of hundred who turned up would probably have caused little trouble, other than a relatively small amount of disruption to traffic as they made their way along to the peace mural. After possibly a few speeches and rather a lot of chanting and shouting, everyone would probably have dispersed without further trouble and we would all have been on our way home before it got dark.

What completely changed the course of events was a decision by the police present to take action against people wearing scarves across their faces. This is of course a part of the anarchist 'uniform', and it does frustrate the police in their attempts to keep photographic tabs on all demonstrators (that database again.)

Section 60(4A) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, Act gives the police powers to require the removal of face coverings that an officer is satisfied is worn wholly or mainly to conceal identity, provided that an officer of or above the rank of inspector has given an authorisation for such action within a given area for a period of up to 24 hours.

Assuming that the police were following the law, the decision to take such action was made in advance. But although such powers were available it surely made no sense to use them before any trouble had occurred, when doing so was almost bound to provoke it.

A small team of officers approached one of the men holding a banner and told him to remove his scarf. A lengthy argument ensued, which ended with the man being manhandled away. At this point there was a bit of a scuffle, and police allege that another man punched a policeman (or possibly a CSW) and he was dragged onto the pavement, handcuffed and searched.

Demonstrators who had remained on the pavement outside the station while this was happening - mainly Greeks and others who had wanted to keep out of any trouble – and a few others who had returned there were then penned in by police (at around 2.43pm.)

A rather larger group of the anarchists had sensibly gone over to the other side of the street before this happened, and there were soon several hundred people watching from across the road. And things stayed more or less this way, with a few more arrests and minor skirmishes and large police reinforcements until I went home around 4.15pm when those not detained were noticeably thinning. I'm told the police held those they had penned until some time after 5pm.

What would have probably have been a short and relatively peaceful event causing short and minor disruption became a major problem, closing Dalston Kingsland station and severely affecting traffic in north London. Several shops nearby closed early. When I left Kingsland High Street - a "Red Route" - was closed to northbound traffic.

As well as the frustration of a legitimate protest, the police activity resulted in considerable inconvenience for many people not taking part, as well as costing us a small fortune in police pay. At best it was a small display of police macho, and I can't see there was any positive outcome from it at all. But perhaps it is some kind of political charade organised to increase public support for increasing surveillance and repressive legislation.

Quite a few more pictures on My London Diary  http://mylondondiary.co.uk/2008/12/dec.htm/greece shortly.

Peter Marshall
- e-mail: petermarshall@cix.co.uk
- Homepage: http://mylondondiary.co.uk

Additions

Here are the rest of the pictures that should have been with the article

15.12.2008 19:45

Discussions with police inside the pen
Discussions with police inside the pen

A woman argues with the inspector (who retires very shortly.)
A woman argues with the inspector (who retires very shortly.)

Inside the pen
Inside the pen

It takes three to put on the handcuffs
It takes three to put on the handcuffs

A baton comes into use
A baton comes into use

Why?
Why?

Chanting opposite the pen
Chanting opposite the pen

A fault with the interface design - pressing enter sends you article even if you haven't reached the send button, so this was published without 7 of the pictures - which were these.

Peter Marshall
mail e-mail: petermarshall@cix.co.uk
- Homepage: http://mylondondiary.co.uk


Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

Hmmmm, not really

15.12.2008 20:04

To suggest that had the march been 'allowed' it would have almost certainly been peaceful and to suggest that removing peoples masks provoked trouble that wasn't already intended doesn't quite seem right. Let's face it, people turning up on a solidarity demo of this nature really aren't the march from A to B type. Given the chance attacks on appropriate symbols on route would be inevitable (and I'm not suggesting anyone shouldn't have such an intent) and the police know enough about us to know this. Why wouldn't the police, in position of power due to their number, resources and backing of the state, allow people the opportunity to reach possible targets when its so easy to simple contain them? Why wouldn't the police remove peoples masks when they have the power to do so and know how much they'll piss people off in the process? You express surprise and outrage but how could you really imagine it any other way?

In London, the cops have the powers to stomp all over us, legitimately or otherwise. They can literally get away with murder. When we tell them we're coming, where and when, how can we expect anything less than the repression we face over and over again? If the shoe were on the other foot wouldn't we take exploit any tactical advantage we had? i hope we would, which brings me to my point. when we don't have the sheer weight of numbers to impose our power in the streets we need to use our brains and the advantage of surprise. these 'publicly advertised' demos prove again and again that we don't have the sheer weight of numbers required and the only reason to continue them is to test each time whether that is still the case (and it almost always is).

riot


You make my point

15.12.2008 20:39

"these 'publicly advertised' demos prove again and again that we don't have the sheer weight of numbers required "

Which is exactly why if a march had been allowed there would probably have been no trouble - or at least very little - and it would easily have been contained by the police, causing far less disruption than occurred. For some reason (perhaps just incompetence) the police decided to take a path that maximised the disruption. I'm just trying to understand why this should be. And perhaps thinking about it might produce more sensible strategies?

Peter Marshall
mail e-mail: petermarshall@cix.co.uk
- Homepage: http://mylondondiary.co.uk


Peter Marshall - technical details

15.12.2008 21:19

Unless you just want to be another blog-media scumbag, blur the faces of the people on demos in your shots. It helps also to get an analysis and understanding of what you are covering or people will view you with hostility. Media is not objective.

ia


Response to dalston kingsland protest

15.12.2008 21:52

In response to this article if the individual that was asked to remove his scarf did so and didn't start arguing with the police then there wouldn't have been a problem. Secondlay, the mention of the police man handling people is utterly wrong and this word has only been used to put ideas into the readers heads. The police may have been heavy handed in your opinion but they were in fact responding to the situation that was put before them. Everything that you said that would of happened if the police didn't interfere infact could of still happened if it remained peaceful and the reason it didn't is not because of the police. If the police wasn't there then the police would have soon been called anyway. Section 60 gives a constable in uniform to stop and search people and require persons to remove face coverings which was rigthly mentioned in your article but as I understood it the section 60 was already implemented before the event and was extended because of what happened at dalston kingsland. If it was peaceful and the police were there then the speech could have been read chants could of been made providing it wasn't imposing section 5 of the public order act because then there would have been an offence. Apart from that I think your point was made to an extent but why wasn't the event aimed at the greek police after all it was a greek police officer with a gun that shot alexis

anon


to hmm not really

16.12.2008 10:24

There have been people knocking about for years saying that we should stop having openly publicised demos. There is certainly nothing wrong with using 'surprise' tactics when the opportunity presents, but using ONLY that strategy would do us no favours.

There is a need to resist and confront the state, and we do not do that by hiding. Yes, it is difficult and we need to be stronger, better organised, more determined and perhaps a little braver, but these things are possible.

Unannounced and covert actions have their place, but also their limitations. Whatever else we do, we need to be stronger on the streets.

confront not retreat


A response to "Response to dalston kingsland protest" by anon

16.12.2008 12:41

"The police may have been heavy handed in your opinion but they were in fact responding to the situation that was put before them."

During the second bid to break out of the police containment, a young woman who was at the front of the surge fell to ground and was punched by one of the officers. According to him and one of his colleagues, this was justified. Are you seriously suggesting that this is the case?

hippocampus


GD465

16.12.2008 12:57

The copper staring wildly at the camera in the photo 'it takes three to put on handcuffs' is one GD465, who grabbed one demonstrator by the throat for no apparent cause. One to watch in the future...

upthera


to ia

17.12.2008 23:45

Hmm, not sure it's so simple.

If the police have filmed everyone thoroughly (I wasn't there so can't say) and got people to remove their masks, why is there any point in blurring the photos? Surely blurring them is to prevent the cops getting good pictures, but if they've already got them....! And it's a march/demo, not an action, and no-one in the photos is doing anything incriminating.

But I share your worries - photographers often think it's their right to take photos, and don't consider what they're filming/shooting. If it's incriminating or the police don't have enough evidence and think the photographers might, they will confiscate the camera and use as evidence. That would be the photographers fault if that happened, and their responsibility. And I don't like my photo being taken either, and don't have much experience that makes me trust photographers. Also, there's nothing certain that the cops got pictures of everyone, unless they were filming people as they let them out in 2s and 3s of the cordon, which is their usual way, just in case they haven't already got 100s of pictures of everyone!

It's become indymedia chic to blur photos as 'what should be done', without thinking if there's any point, or what the photo is actually of.

about photo blurring


Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech