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Re: G-20 protesters break into Royal Bank of Scotland
This is a first-hand account from someone at the climate protest yesterday.
This is a first-hand account from someone at the climate protest yesterday.
BethMcGrath
02 Apr 09, 12:37pm (about 2 hours ago)
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.
02 Apr 09, 12:37pm (about 2 hours ago)
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.
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