G20

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
i would guess that most people agree that things are incredibly fucked, worried and angry at bankers etc, but then the press seems to try and create a them and us mentality before the protests, you know, danger, riots, hippies, what they want, to be honest the protesters often do as good a job at alienating the general populous as the press does.
That penning people in tactic is shit, esp as they take everyones pics, names and addresses on the way out, plus it essentially causes people to kick off, don't know what the legality of that is, taking peoples details without premise to do so.

again, yet more reason to hand out flyers with people's rights on them. Saw a good article in Big Issue recently about stop-and-search rights, which clarified things in a very easy-to-understand way.
 

mms

sometimes
that sounds familiar.
you get the report on the news police charged at protesters to try to contain the group, the situation became uglier as police surround protesters pushing them into a contained circle. no shit.
 

vimothy

yurp
G20-Protests-G20-Protests-001.jpg
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
The man who died during last week's G20 protests was "assaulted" by riot police shortly before he suffered a heart attack, according to witness statements received by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Investigators are examining a series of corroborative accounts that allege Ian Tomlinson, 47, was a victim of police violence in the moments before he collapsed near the Bank of England in the City of London last Wednesday evening. Three witnesses have told the Observer that Mr Tomlinson was attacked violently as he made his way home from work at a nearby newsagents. One claims he was struck on the head with a baton.

Photographer Anna Branthwaite said: "I can remember seeing Ian Tomlinson. He was rushed from behind by a riot officer with a helmet and shield two or three minutes before he collapsed." Branthwaite, an experienced press photographer, has made a statement to the IPCC.

Read it all here.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
That's really awful, and surely in bald and direct contravention of their own mission statement:

"The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) became operational on 1 April 2004. It is a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), funded by the Home Office, but by law entirely independent of the police, interest groups and political parties and whose decisions on cases are free from government involvement."
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
That's really awful, and surely in bald and direct contravention of their own mission statement:

"The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) became operational on 1 April 2004. It is a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), funded by the Home Office, but by law entirely independent of the police, interest groups and political parties and whose decisions on cases are free from government involvement."

I totally heard that being read out by Charlie Brooker. I hope Newsnight get hold of it.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Sent em an email.

good on ya.

C4 news talked a lot about this man's death last night, but didn't mention the anomaly of the 'investigators' being the same police force this lot were there to help out (I'm sure I saw a few yellow City of London Police jackets there that day - it is their turf, after all)
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I was talking to someone the other day about the suposed rivalries between city and met police.

Speculation that the met refused to help out with J18 and this was their opportunity to "show how it should be done" sort of thing.

If those rivlaries are real it will be interesting to see if the city police take the opportnity to twist the knife in or work together for "the greater good of policing". If I had to bet, it would be on the latter, tho.
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
some bad stuff about the enquiry ja.

totally OT but re that NYT piece that Polystyle links, which mentions Andrew Exum getting possibly more charitably excitable than he needed to re baton technique from the Met, this for me is another reason i am getting more sniffy about Exum sometimes (following his rather unkind hindsight assessment of Hitchens getting a slap in Beirut)
 

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
It appears the Tamils are giving the Met a run for their money...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7987837.stm

That's how demos should work - turn up and demonstrate, don't sit around knitting muesli bars and pleading

I covered the Tamil protest in Toronto for a University newspaper and it was one of the more amazing things I've seen happen in the city since I've lived here. 30,000-50,000 in total, the bulk of which had congregated outside of Union Station, women, children, teenagers, the eldery, six to seven hours long, organized almost entirely by word of mouth and community radio, complete co-operation from the police, and highly effective indeed.

No violence, no LTTE flags, just pure unignorable message.

Toronto has the largest population of Tamil people outside of Sri Lanka.

display_ca_protest_parliament__opt.jpeg.jpg
 
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