An update on the Dale farm situation, including information on increased police repression and hostility towards residents and activists, and calls for further supplies to aid the resistance.
Another Week passes at Dale Farm, and once again we are at the receiving end of some undeserved state repression. Today activists leaving the site to buy food supplies for camp were stopped and the driver finger printed in a blatant attempt by police to intimidate them. The two female activists were harassed by police outside the Barley Lands Whole Sale Store in Crays Hill whilst out shopping. They were asked a number of questions about where they were staying etc and at one point it seemed that the two male officers were going to search them, an act that would have violated police guidelines. The activists were a bit shaken up, but otherwise OK, and before leaving the police threatened the activists to tell Travelers from the Dale Farm site that "They can expect this as normal from now on".
This comes on a day when community support officers and one other police officer were stationed outside the front gates trying to convince residents that they were "friendly" and should be let in following a decision in a residents meeting that banned the officers from site given that they were abusing their friendship with some residents to gather information about what the eviction resistance might look like. As well as this, residents have had the added stress of a permanent police car presence at the end of their road on the exit of the site, which has stopped and questioned drivers intending to enter and yesterday a mobile police station sat from most of the day on Oak Lane.
The current police tactic is indicative of the state oppression that residents of the Dale Farm site face on a daily basis. Travelling communities have long been targeted by the forces of the state on the basis that they are often ostracized from wider society. The very fact the residents have got to know the so called "community team" which frequently visit is telling of the level of control and monitoring they are subject to.
For activists and residents alike this level of police intrusion is unwelcome, if not unusual, and the stepping up of interest in the situation at Dale Farm represents their attempts to try and break the solidarity built up here. The particular tactic of intimidation (seen today) is a clear sign that the state is fearful of the power of this eviction resistance. Today, we send a message to the forces of the state, that we will not bow to their bullying, submit to their oppression, or allow ourselves to be intimidated by their actions. We are as ready as we always have been to resist, and no amount of state violence will make us reconsider this decision. Solidarity will not be broken by the baton and resistance shall never fall at the hands of surveillance, we are committed to defend this space from the state, and to defend the movement from its officers... "It takes a nation of millions to hold us back"
As a direct result of the repression faced here we are forced now to put out a request for further supplies. Since residents have been told by the Council that electricity to the site will be cut prior to the eviction, we are in need of petrol powered electricity generators, 12volt batteries, and AAA|AA batteries, in order to support those on electricity powered life support machines and to enable the maintenance of ordinary appliances such as ovens.
Solidarity Is A Weapon, Not A Word.
This comes on a day when community support officers and one other police officer were stationed outside the front gates trying to convince residents that they were "friendly" and should be let in following a decision in a residents meeting that banned the officers from site given that they were abusing their friendship with some residents to gather information about what the eviction resistance might look like. As well as this, residents have had the added stress of a permanent police car presence at the end of their road on the exit of the site, which has stopped and questioned drivers intending to enter and yesterday a mobile police station sat from most of the day on Oak Lane.
The current police tactic is indicative of the state oppression that residents of the Dale Farm site face on a daily basis. Travelling communities have long been targeted by the forces of the state on the basis that they are often ostracized from wider society. The very fact the residents have got to know the so called "community team" which frequently visit is telling of the level of control and monitoring they are subject to.
For activists and residents alike this level of police intrusion is unwelcome, if not unusual, and the stepping up of interest in the situation at Dale Farm represents their attempts to try and break the solidarity built up here. The particular tactic of intimidation (seen today) is a clear sign that the state is fearful of the power of this eviction resistance. Today, we send a message to the forces of the state, that we will not bow to their bullying, submit to their oppression, or allow ourselves to be intimidated by their actions. We are as ready as we always have been to resist, and no amount of state violence will make us reconsider this decision. Solidarity will not be broken by the baton and resistance shall never fall at the hands of surveillance, we are committed to defend this space from the state, and to defend the movement from its officers... "It takes a nation of millions to hold us back"
As a direct result of the repression faced here we are forced now to put out a request for further supplies. Since residents have been told by the Council that electricity to the site will be cut prior to the eviction, we are in need of petrol powered electricity generators, 12volt batteries, and AAA|AA batteries, in order to support those on electricity powered life support machines and to enable the maintenance of ordinary appliances such as ovens.
Solidarity Is A Weapon, Not A Word.
