Weds 1st April: G20 protests - discussion, reaction and chat

[free spirit]

Equally, if mass-detention becomes bearable, it becomes more easily accepted. But I'm pragmatic: if demonstrators want to campaign for an obligation to provide necessities when "kettled", fine by me. Just so long as it's accompanied with a campaign to get the tactic declared illegal. As for those MP observers, I trust they'll be putting forward a bill to this effect?

How hard do you think it is for the police to bring in 50-100 portaloos, drinking water bowser, water proofs and food for several thousand people?

it's doable, but very difficult at short notice, so IMO it would effectively lead to the use of a kettle becoming at worst a very short lived thing - ie not more than a couple of hours, which IMO has to be a major improvement on the current 8-10 hours.

The biggest problem is over-reliance on the Human Rights Act and ECHR. The sooner people recognise that these feeble collections of idealistic waffle are inadequate to the task in hand, the better. But right now the likes of Liberty, Amnesty International and the Lib Dems fawn over them.

what I'm talking about has nothing whatsoever to do with any human rights act (unless I'm missing something major).

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

i still don't really understand why you want a HR kettle bought in as an acceptable baseline of protest freespirit tbh. we shouldn't let ourselves be put in the position, that should be the aspiration, not arguing about the niceties of when the fucking thing is imposed cos they'll come and stomp on you anyhow, even if you behave yourself and even when you're not presenting an immediate threat come to that...

 

[cesare]

see, this is where i'm unconvinced, its turkeys voting for xmaS again, i had a cousin who was a cop and they love to toe the party line, no matter what that line is. am also very tired and so am off to bed. good night, we live to fight another day eh?

Well they do give the impression of being a bit fucking thick, like. But they wouldn't get recruited if they weren't able to take orders without questioning them too much, eh. And they're doing a fair amount of whinging themselves about their payrise (or lack of) plus superiors that pass things down the line without passing them back up, plus a whole host of other things e.g. wardens slapping tickets on them lol. They still don't seem to have worked out that many of the protesters & people caught up in this weren't just howwible anarchists and fluffies that they seem to think don't deserve decent treatment, but people that are now doing a double take.

Anyway, again you're just homing in on one example to disagree with Paulie, my overall point is the opposite of getting caught up on detail and divisiveness.

 

[cesare]

i still don't really understand why you want a HR kettle bought in as an acceptable baseline of protest freespirit tbh. we shouldn't let ourselves be put in the position, that should be the aspiration, not arguing about the niceties of when the fucking thing is imposed cos they'll come and stomp on you anyhow, even if you behave yourself and even when you're not presenting an immediate threat come to that...

I could be misunderstanding Free Spirit (again) here ... but isn't the issue that if the courts are saying kettling is legal until tested in Europe, until then use the duty of care angle to make it more trouble than it's worth for the OB to abuse it?

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Well they do give the impression of being a bit fucking thick, like. But they wouldn't get recruited if they weren't able to take orders without questioning them too much, eh. And they're doing a fair amount of whinging themselves about their payrise (or lack of) plus superiors that pass things down the line without passing them back up, plus a whole host of other things e.g. wardens slapping tickets on them lol. They still don't seem to have worked out that many of the protesters & people caught up in this weren't just howwible anarchists and fluffies that they seem to think don't deserve decent treatment, but people that are now doing a double take.

Anyway, again you're just homing in on one example to disagree with Paulie, my overall point is the opposite of getting caught up on detail and divisiveness.

divisiveness - dare you to say that after a couple of lime and lagers i know what you mean, i just get so frustrated when you feel people are so close to making a mental shift is all....mps i shit em.

 

[free spirit]

Which is fine as an additional angle I s'pose, but it's principally H&S driven? Which is fine within the UK but I'm not sure how it links into European legislation and any springboard into the European courts if it fails here. Not sure really though. Not my area.

it doesn't link to europe, but I don't think it would need to - it's pretty basic stuff IMO, though I'm not a lawyer, it seems pretty clear to me (experienced event manager / event safety officer) that the police have failed in their duty of care to the protestors they're kettling.

I think duty of care and H&S stuff are very intertwined, with the H&S laws essentially expanding on parts of the old duty of care tort law.

I also think a corporate manslaughter charge could be worth someone looking at quite seriously on Ian Tomlinson's behalf.

Think my dad lectures on this stuff, but not from a protest pov, will maybe have to raid his office for some books / ask him when I see him next weekend.

 

[cesare]

divsiveness - dare you to say that after a couple of lime and lagers i know what you mean, i just get so frustrated when you feel people are so close to making a mental shift is all....mps i shit em.

Heh, yeah I do know what you mean Frustrating innit, but the tipping point will come.

 

[free spirit]

i still don't really understand why you want a HR kettle bought in as an acceptable baseline of protest freespirit tbh. we shouldn't let ourselves be put in the position, that should be the aspiration, not arguing about the niceties of when the fucking thing is imposed cos they'll come and stomp on you anyhow, even if you behave yourself and even when you're not presenting an immediate threat come to that...

so you sue them again and again and again until there insurers tell them to sort their fucking act out or they'll stop providing them with cover / put their premiums up.

if the police keep ignoring the judgements of the courts, then the fines will get bigger as well, and if the police realise you're actually serious, with serious legal backing, and there's the potential for corporate manslaughter charges on top... then, they will take us seriously and back off.

until then, they will continue to treat us exactly how they want to because they think we've not got the clout to hurt them where it counts (ie legally and financially).

also, as stated earlier, the payments for damages can be put to use in funding the next protests as happened with the J18 evading standards that was funded by a Met payout.

stop being angry, start being smart.

ps I was nicked in the 2000 mayday kettle, and nearly took this on then (but got a conditional discharge, so it wasn't worth risking it)... so I've had a good 9 years to think about this

pps I seriously doubt that mayday 2001 case will work even in the ECHR

 

[free spirit]

I could be misunderstanding Free Spirit (again) here ... but isn't the issue that if the courts are saying kettling is legal until tested in Europe, until then use the duty of care angle to make it more trouble than it's worth for the OB to abuse it?

sort of.

Having read through that house of lords judgement on mayday 2001, I reckon the climate camp should start a new case to test the whole proportionality side of things as I think they have a much better case than the mayday 2001 situation (ie history of non-violence, prior meeting with police, no violence at that protest prior to kettling, publicity material specifying non-violence policy etc vs the opposite for the mayday 2001 case). This could potentially even be decided in the UK courts, which could at least mean that the police would only be able to use kettles in specifically violent situations - ie not against non-violent protests.

at the same time, I think they should persue the duty of care angle to make it more hastle for them to use, but also at least make things safer for all concerned... IMO it's only a matter of time before we get a hillsborough style crush causing multiple deaths from a badly executed police kettle, so I don't think this is something to be ignored... and effectively limit the time that they can kettle protestors for.

The main thing though would be to hit them on all possible legal fronts, so that they are forced to start being much more careful about what they're doing, and how they're doing it because they realise we have the ability and motivation to take them to court for it afterwards... ie a large part of the reason why they treat the big ngo's and the anarchists differently.

eta plus corporate manslaughter charges for Ian Tomlinson

 

[FridgeMagnet]

The suing, the legal action, that's all long-term though, and has no guarantee of success at all. And until/unless it does, it's just PR.

Sometimes it seems to me that the only point of this sort of big march-type demo is to show to people who've grown up thinking that big march-type demos achieve something, that they don't. That it doesn't matter whether you're "non-violent" or not, the police are out to stop you protesting regardless of how you do it. And even illustrating that doesn't do that much good, as people just don't believe it often, that those nice policemen will beat folk up for no reason apart from that what they're doing is politically wrong.

 

[Darios]

The suing, the legal action, that's all long-term though, and has no guarantee of success at all. And until/unless it does, it's just PR.

Sometimes it seems to me that the only point of this sort of big march-type demo is to show to people who've grown up thinking that big march-type demos achieve something, that they don't. That it doesn't matter whether you're "non-violent" or not, the police are out to stop you protesting regardless of how you do it. And even illustrating that doesn't do that much good, as people just don't believe it often, that those nice policemen will beat folk up for no reason apart from that what they're doing is politically wrong.

Which means - effectively (and despite the fact a number of us from diverse political views do agree on some of these points) - we're left with the kind of actions that we simply can't discuss on this, or any other, internet forum.

And all the while, more fence posts are set up around us - here is another one, effective as of tomorrow.

The trap is closing for any real alternative, or activism, whether "left" or "right". Only "conspiracy theorists" are concerned about this though, right?

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

so you sue them again and again and again until there insurers tell them to sort their fucking act out or they'll stop providing them with cover / put their premiums up.

if the police keep ignoring the judgements of the courts, then the fines will get bigger as well, and if the police realise you're actually serious, with serious legal backing, and there's the potential for corporate manslaughter charges on top... then, they will take us seriously and back off.

until then, they will continue to treat us exactly how they want to because they think we've not got the clout to hurt them where it counts (ie legally and financially).

also, as stated earlier, the payments for damages can be put to use in funding the next protests as happened with the J18 evading standards that was funded by a Met payout.

stop being angry, start being smart.

ps I was nicked in the 2000 mayday kettle, and nearly took this on then (but got a conditional discharge, so it wasn't worth risking it)... so I've had a good 9 years to think about this

pps I seriously doubt that mayday 2001 case will work even in the ECHR

sorry but i can't accept being acceptably caged as an aspiration, we need to be knocking down walls and smashing down barriers to progresss imo. i didn't get fucking kettled in 2001 cos i kept on my toes, same as every year. so you should you and yours

 

[cesare]

Pursue all routes, in every respect.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

inshallah

 

[free spirit]

The suing, the legal action, that's all long-term though, and has no guarantee of success at all. And until/unless it does, it's just PR.

1 - it's not just PR, it acts as a shot across the bows of the police, warning them that you have the resources and the ability to take them to court if they overstep the mark. This will mean their in house legal advisors will be looking at their actions even before it comes to court to limit any future liability, potentially even meaning they redraw their rules of engagement before it even comes to court.

2 - there are no guarantees in life, everything is done on a judgement of where a situation falls along the risk / reward / effort continuum. This looks worth it IMO.

3 - had the legal action that was taken for the 2001 mayday been taken in 2000 then it could well have been at the ECHR before these actions. If it takes 5 or 10 years, then that's how long it takes, question is, are we serious about this shit, or are we* just playing at it?







* I say 'we', but I personally have no ability to take this action because I wasn't at the protests this time.

 

[free spirit]

Corporate Manslaughter info...

The offence
(1)An organisation to which this section applies is guilty of an offence if the way in which its activities are managed or organised—
(a)causes a person’s death, and
(b)amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased.

[the act]

if it turns out, as it looks like from the witness statements that have come out recently, that Ian Tomlinson was the subject of an assault by the police prior to his death, then I reckon this could well be a test case for the corporate manslaughter law.

 

[cesare]

Then go for it free spirit.

By all routes possible.

 

[albionism]

Going a bit off thread here, but is this Vivian Westwood at Climate Camp?

 

[cesare]

Looks like her. If it was, she hasn't yet spoken out though, so who cares?

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

ah fuck, and there was me gonna wear my paul smith revol t-shirt as well.......

 

[free spirit]

Then go for it free spirit.

By all routes possible.

minor problems being I wasn't there, I've no direct involvement in climate camp or g20 meltdown organisations, and am not a relative of anyone involved, which I think counts me out as a direct plaintive.

I guess I could get my thoughts together and send them to the climate camp folks or something.

right now though I'm off to bed

 

[cesare]

minor problems being I wasn't there, I've no direct involvement in climate camp or g20 meltdown organisations, and am not a relative of anyone involved, which I think counts me out as a direct plaintive.

I guess I could get my thoughts together and send them to the climate camp folks or something.

right now though I'm off to bed

Don't have to be a direct plaintive to gee things along. As you say, just get your thoughts together, and see if they'll take them up.

Then look at another angle, and do same. Etc.

 

[SpookyFrank]

How hard do you think it is for the police to bring in 50-100 portaloos, drinking water bowser, water proofs and food for several thousand people?

it's doable, but very difficult at short notice, so IMO it would effectively lead to the use of a kettle becoming at worst a very short lived thing - ie not more than a couple of hours, which IMO has to be a major improvement on the current 8-10 hours.

The logic is evidently working backwards. It's not possible to provide food, water, shelter and toilets for several hundred people for several hours so they don't bother; how about if they can't look after the people in their ad-hoc custody then they shouldn't imprison them in the first place.

Kettling people for long periods doesn't make any sense even if you accept that the ridiculous view that, for example, the G8 climate camp was full of violent protestors who had to be contained for the safety of the public. If you keep everyone in one place for eight hours, then eight hours later they'll still be there. If they are indeed violent, godless sociopaths then they will still be violent, godless sociopaths eight hours later; except now they're going to be really really cranky. If the people in the cordon were criminals then fair enough, nick the lot of them and let the vast stacks of evidence you have against them do the talking. If you have no evidence that the people in your cordon are criminals then you have no right to keep them there solely on the basis of your suspicion that some of them might be up to no good. If it is now part of the police mandate to imprison people who may possibly commit a criminal act in the future then they're going to have to lock up everyone in the country aren't they? I recommend they start with all those carrying weapons; ie themselves.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Corporate Manslaughter info...


[the act]

if it turns out, as it looks like from the witness statements that have come out recently, that Ian Tomlinson was the subject of an assault by the police prior to his death, then I reckon this could well be a test case for the corporate manslaughter law.

There is no chance of getting that to stick. None at all. If the queen herself watched a gang of coked-up coppers beat this bloke senseless with iron bars and got the whole thing on her handycam, this will never stick. Even assuming the theory of mulitple parallel realities is correct, and every decision creates divergant universes where different situations play themselves out, there will still not be anywhere in those countless trillions of worlds where there is the remostest possibility that such a charge could be made to stick. God himself couldn't make it stick.

 

[e19896]

To make a complaint against the police call IPCC 08453 002 002, London City police 02076012222, Met Authority 02072020202. For items lost during G20 'police riots' call 02076063110 - If you don't have a complaint call them anyway for a chat, they don't have anything better to do now they haven't got innocent people to beat up :

Have fun:

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Going a bit off thread here, but is this Vivian Westwood at Climate Camp?

Yes that is indeed Vivienne Westwood. She was briefly interviewed on one of the television news programmes - I can't remember which one, when they did a 'vox pop' at the climate camp.

 

[jæd]

The suing, the legal action, that's all long-term though, and has no guarantee of success at all. And until/unless it does, it's just PR.

Sometimes it seems to me that the only point of this sort of big march-type demo is to show to people who've grown up thinking that big march-type demos achieve something, that they don't. That it doesn't matter whether you're "non-violent" or not, the police are out to stop you protesting regardless of how you do it. And even illustrating that doesn't do that much good, as people just don't believe it often, that those nice policemen will beat folk up for no reason apart from that what they're doing is politically wrong.

So how about the protest last Saturday... AFAIK there wasn't any police violence towards the protesters...?

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Freedom Association contingent:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31101483@N03/3406994114/

[warning, may hurt eyeballs]

 

[Barking_Mad]

Freedom Association contingent:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31101483@N03/3406994114/

that hurt my eyeballs.

 

[free spirit]

There is no chance of getting that to stick. None at all. If the queen herself watched a gang of coked-up coppers beat this bloke senseless with iron bars and got the whole thing on her handycam, this will never stick. Even assuming the theory of mulitple parallel realities is correct, and every decision creates divergant universes where different situations play themselves out, there will still not be anywhere in those countless trillions of worlds where there is the remostest possibility that such a charge could be made to stick. God himself couldn't make it stick.

bugger, looks like you're probably right...

65. Section 5 deals with policing and law enforcement activities performed by the police and other law enforcement bodies. Subsection (1) provides an exemption that applies to the police and other law enforcement bodies (such as immigration bodies) in respect of all categories of duty of care referred to in section 2, i.e., including those duties of care owed by an organisation as an employer or the occupier of premises. But this wide exemption is available only in limited circumstances: specifically, operations dealing with terrorism, civil unrest or serious disorder in which an authority's officers or employees come under attack or the threat of attack; or where the authority in question is preparing for or supporting such operations; or where it is carrying on training with respect to such operations.

66. This reflects the existing law of negligence, which already accepts that the policing of violence when the police come under attack, or the threat of attack, will not give rise to liability on the part of an employer. The requirement in section 5(2) that the operations being carried on, or prepared for, or supported, amount to "policing or law enforcement activities".

67. Subsection (3) confers an exemption that applies to a wider range of policing and law enforcement activities, but not in respect of the duty of care owed as employer (or occupier). The exemption therefore operates to exclude circumstances where the pursuit of law enforcement activities has resulted in a fatality to a member of the public. Many of the activities to which this will be relevant will be ones that are not in any event covered by the offence either because no duty of care is owed or because they do not amount to the supply of services or the activities are exclusively public functions.

68. Subsection (3) makes it clear that policing and law enforcement activities are not, in this respect, covered by the offence. This will include decisions about and responses to emergency calls, the manner in which particular police operations are conducted, the way in which law enforcement and other powers are exercised, measures taken to protect witnesses and the arrest and detention of suspects.

[cps]

depends how the court would define 'being under threat of attack', and could be worth trying to get a definition on that - ie to decide under what circumstances it is ok for the police to use their battons to smack people round the head... but after reading that info, I agree it's unlikely to succeed.