En Londono batis multajn homojn la polico

Beth MCGrath wriing in the The Guardian 2 April 2009


I was held at the climate camp til midnight last night. When I arrived at 6pm to celebrate the creative sight of a camp in london's grey financial streets, the police
allowed me to walk straight into the camp with my bike. As the reports
have said, the atmosphere was very warm and positive; school children
and old time protesters sharing a space full of colour and music.
Within an hour of arriving, those same police, who had stepped back
and let me through, closed in around the camp and refused to let
anyone in or out. I then watched the police push forward into the
crowd with brutality that was not only shocking but utterly
unecessary. All the protesters put their hands in the air and sat down
collectively on the road. Yet as the crowd lowered I saw a young man
stagger back with his head split open, another boy with a broken nose,
a girl next to me had been kicked between the legs. People were badly
hurt and the atsmophere spun into a frightened panic. A friend of mine
from university who had come from Nottingham to join the camp just put
his head in his hands and cried. This was the scene, minutes after
people had been allowed to wander into the camp without any warning of
the planned police actions, or any chance to leave peacefully. As they
rolled in back up police and black armoured riot vans, and as the
police kicked and crushed people's bikes, the
protesters called out to them, and the onlooking bankers, up in their
ivory towers, 'This is not a riot!'. As their battons came down, Legal
Observors called out to people to take the police numbers of those who
had hurt protesters; on mass the line of police all covered up their
badges. It was a chilling show of a police unaccountable to their own
laws, and their own humanity. The police were indeed braced for
violence, but most of that young crowd of protesters were not.

Despite our repeated requests to be searched and allowed to leave the
space, we were held there for 6 hours with no access to water, food,
toilets or medical care. Proudly, throughout all this, not one person
in the crowd reacted with violence to any person or property. People
shared the little they had and held public meetings about the aims of
the G20 summit. There was little show of anger, but much unhappiness.
When finally we were herded out one by one at midnight, I felt cold to
the core, chilled by the unprovoked agression of those who I had been
brought up to trust. I am deeply ashamed of my state, when reasonable
and calm protesters are criminalised and provoked in such a manner.
Their use of section 14 on 800 campers was mindless, their violence
was a tragedy and their very presence, with armoured cars and
helicopters, a ridiculous waste of public money.

I am writing this today because I grew up in this city and treasure
the right to use this city space to speak out to our elected leaders
in a peaceful, creative way. There were no harmful intentions in that
climate camp, but the harm done by the police last night goes far
deeper that the physical wounds inflicted; it is in the chaos of
unnecessary state violence that fear is born and trust is lost.

similaĵoj okazas ankaŭ en Hungario. Eble tio estas la modo ĉe maldekstraj registaroj :(

Sur mia spaco mi trovis jenan informon:

"Plej novaj artikoloj pri vi antaŭ 5 tagoj
En Londono batis multon la policio
Britaj policanoj batas manifestaciantojn ĉiuspecajn. 1-a aprilo 2009 ekkunsidis en Londono la estroj de la dudek plej fortaj ekonomioj de la mondo. Pro senlaboeco, povreco kaj la krizo kaǔzita fare de la kapitalima financsistemo manifestaciis multe da
de Peter Bowing / 2 komentoj / 47 vizitoj "

Mi alklakis la ligilon kaj trovis jenan artikolon. Iom strange, ĉar mi ne komprenas kial estas aludita ,ke ĝi temas pri mi. :-( Mi tutcerte ne partoprenis je iu ajn protesto kaj mi certe ne batis ion en Londono aŭ ie ajn.

Two specifc cases have been highlighted of people being assaulted by police: Ian Tomlinson because he died and Nicola Fisher because she is a woman – and in both cases video evidence shows very clearly what happened.

Police authorities will try to pass off Tomlinson and Fisher as isolated cases using the ‘rotten apples in the barrel’ argument. However this approach deliberately deflects attention from the wide scale use of police violence.

The truth is that tens (if not hundreds) of demonstrators, who were neither violent nor vandalising property, were beaten with truncheons, riot shield, or were kicked or punched by police officers. Others had dogs set on them. Officers wore balaclavas and removed their identification number en masse precisely so they could assault with impunity.

Many of the victims were people (demonstrators and passers-by) who were forcibly imprisoned for hours in street concentration pens (the so-called kettling) who could not even leave the demonstration if they wished.

After several hours without food, water or toilet facilities demonstrators were allowed out the kettles, on condition that they agreed to identify themselves and be photographed. No legal authority for this exists; yet neither police management nor the government cares.

It is impossible not to draw the conclusion that police tactics were to punish demonstrators, not to police the demonstration. The New Labour government ares quite content, it would seem, to let that stand. Indeed, for the government itself Lord West has already congratulated the police on their operation. The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is anything but independent, has thus got the political support to procrastinate and to exonerate the police whenever it can. We need not hold our breath for them to finish their deliberations.

Indeed Tomlinson and Fischer need justice in their individual cases. But what really needs to happen is that large numbers of these police thugs need prosecuting and should be dismissed from the police force – and those senior officers in charge of these police on April 1st should be put on trial for conspiracy to assault.

The fact that nothing like this will happen shows just how far Britain is from being a liberal-democratic society governed by the rule of law.