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

Here's a quote from a moderator on that police forum, when challenged by the photographer that only a small majority of protesters were breaking the law:

The actual number of people committing offences was virtually all of them. My understanding is that the organisers did not get permission for this demonstration. If that is the case, they were all breaking the law.
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Oh well that's me convinced. In that case all police actions were definately justified...:rolleyes:
 
winjer said:
If it's not, why would they (and Nick Hardwick) keep claiming that it is?
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I don't know. Either way it's a bit fucked.

If they are trained to use excessive violence, then that would be very very wrong.

If they're disregarding their training and orders to use excessive violence, it's also very very wrong.
 
A report has appeared on indymedia of 63 arrests today:

In what looks like a European wide co-ordinated series of arrests 63 people have been arrested today in conjunction with activities during the G20 event. The truly worrying part is that police have requested the mainstream media to not report this until later tonight as further arrests are expected and they do not want tip offs.

www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/broken/ 428284.html
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Not, needless to say, yet a confirmed story.
 
tar1984 said:
"The actual number of people committing offences was virtually all of them. My understanding is that the organisers did not get permission for this demonstration. If that is the case, they were all breaking the law."
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There's someone (an officer?) who needs to brush up on their law.

It's legal to organise or take part in a public assembly without notifying the police anywhere but the SOCPA zone around parliament.

It's legal to attend a public procession anywhere, unless it's been banned in advance, even if the organisers have not notified police.

It's illegal to organise or take part in a public assembly without notifying the police in the SOCPA zone around parliament.

It's illegal to organise a public procession anywhere without notifying the police, unless it's not practical to do so (cf. Critical Mass).
 
winjer said:
There's someone (an officer?) who needs to brush up on their law.

It's legal to organise or take part in a public assembly without notifying the police anywhere but the SOCPA zone around parliament.

It's legal to attend a public procession anywhere, unless it's been banned in advance, even if the organisers have not notified police.

It's illegal to organise or take part in a public assembly without notifying the police in the SOCPA zone around parliament.

It's illegal to organise a public procession anywhere without notifying the police, unless it's not practical to do so (cf. Critical Mass).
Click to expand...


Even if it wasn't an officer who posted that, it is notable that none of the serving officers who use that site felt it neccesary to correct the poster.

Rampant self-justification.
 
laptop said:
A report has appeared on indymedia of 63 arrests today:

Not, needless to say, yet a confirmed story.
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The thing I find myself wondering is that if, say, 20 years ago, someone had started a thread about "what would a Police State UK look like if it came to pass 20 years hence?", would we have been predicting something like this? A situation where laws exist to pick people up pretty much on suspicion, where all kinds of civil rights we took for granted back then have quietly disappeared, a place with a deeply entrenched sense of fear - I don't remember quite this "terrorism" paranoia then, and we were far more likely to experience it, with the IRA in full flood - and the level of intrusion, searches, and casual suspicion that we seem to quite willingly put up with now?

Or was it just as bad then, and I'm just wearing rose-tinted specs? :)

But this kind of rounding-up-the-suspects three weeks later has a very sinister ring to it indeed...
 
This might interest some of you. RBOS want £40,000 in damages from the 17yr old girl that was arrested in the window smashing incident.


BBC Ceefax, page 111.
 
Smurker said:
This might interest some of you. RBOS want £40,000 in damages from the 17yr old girl that was arrested in the window smashing incident.


BBC Ceefax, page 111.
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A bugger that for sure and you have to asks why didn't the RSB bank boarded up their window in the first place? I was a target "mention" by the mainstream media so it wouldn't had escaped their notices...
 
newbie said:
more so than pre-emptively arresting over 100 people who hadn't actually done anything at all?
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While we can speculate as to whether their actions could constitute prima facie evidence of a conspiracy, it's complete nonsense to claim they hadn't "done anything at all".
 
_pH_ said:
this has all come down to semantics and pedantics on how 'force'/'violence' is defined.
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I don't think there's much of a semantic dispute to be had between even the most belligerent pacifist and the calmest insurrectionist about whether, for example, throwing 27kg crush barriers at police lines is 'totally peaceful'.
 
winjer said:
While we can speculate as to whether their actions could constitute prima facie evidence of a conspiracy, it's complete nonsense to claim they hadn't "done anything at all".
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is it?

What substantive law was broken?

From what I've read, when they were arrested nothing tangible had actually happened, at a power station or anywhere else, that could be directly laid at the door of that group of 114 people.

What is there, other than speculation, to suggest that anything would have necessarily happened had the police not intervened? Maybe those concerned would think better of whatever they'd discussed, any hotheads being marginalised by more cautious voices, maybe their discussions were a cover for something else entirely, maybe all sorts of things.
 
Is the Sky reporter Roddy Mansfield in that piece the same as the Roddy Mansfield from Undercurrents?

http://www.undercurrents.org/people/index.htm

Roddy has been with undercurrents since 1995 and has worked as the archive manager and video activist. He has wandered with his camera undetected into the house of commons and has been arrested more than ten times while filming but never charged.

Undercurrents Filmography highlights
Pig Brother (undercurrents 8)-exploring state surveilance of peaceful protesters.
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