Saturday, December 11th, 2010

Jody McIntyre at the tuition fees protests 09.12.10

Short clip of journalist, activist and blogger Jody McIntyre being dragged by the Forward Intelligence Team from his wheelchair to the no-man’s land between two police lines at Westminster Abbey, 09 December 2010.
Here, a FIT officer tells him he’s not arrested, that he’s “going to get hurt”.
I regret not staying with him. My phone rang [...]

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

In your face: the TSG are at it again

Remember Nicola Fisher? The lady armed with a juice box who got up close and personal with the back of Sgt. Delroy Smellie’s hand?
Footage has emerged of TSG officer U1202 punching a man in the face at the student demonstrations in Central London on 30 November 2010.

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

No charge in Ian Tomlinson death

The Crown Prosecution Service has said there is no charge to answer in the case of a newspaper vendor who died during the G20 protests in London. So the police culture of impunity continues.

The police officer filmed pushing Ian Tomlinson to the ground will not face criminal charges, the Crown Prosecution Service said [...]

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Anti-terror Stop and Search Powers To Be Scrapped

Home Secretary Theresa May is to halt searches of individuals without reasonable suspicion after the European Court of Human Rights rules the power unlawful.

The controversial use of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is to be scrapped immediately, Home Secretary Theresa May has said.
In a speech to the House of [...]

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Section 44 – Your Rights

Thousands of people across Britain have been stopped and searched illegally by police using Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the Home Office has revealed.

One of the most flagrant of these illegal uses was in London in April 2004, involving 840 people.
Fourteen police forces in the UK including the Metropolitan Police, City Police and [...]

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Wanna Buy a Tank?

For Sale. One Space Hijackers Tank. Last seen 01 April 2009 – at London’s G20 demonstrations – steaming down Bishopsgate with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries blaring from its soundsystem. 11 careful owners all registered on the DNA database. Many of us popped our arrest cherry that day.

Our mobile oppression [...]

Friday, May 28th, 2010

sTate Modern: Tate Makes Surveillance An Art Form

A new show called Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera opens at Tate Modern this week. It features images made surreptitiously or without the explicit permission of the subject. It is the history of spying with a lens in just over 250 photographs.
But there’s an elephant in the museum. As [...]

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Smellie’s Acquittal Stinks

Metropolitan Police Sergeant Delroy Smellie was cleared of assaulting protestor Nicola Fisher at the memorial to Ian Tomlinson’s killing at last year’s G20 Demonstrations. District Judge Daphne Wickham ruled he acted lawfully despite video evidence posted on the internet showing Smellie thrashing a woman half his size with the back of his hand [...]

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Stop, Search, Succumb

The Home Office is to appeal a European Court of Human Rights decision stating that the use of Section 44 (Terrorism Act 2000) to stop and search individuals violates the right to respect for a private life guaranteed by Article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights.
Section 44 has long drawn criticism from protestors who [...]

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

G20 vs 34C

Despite the fact that photographs from the first day of the G20 protests in April 2009 show me astride an armoured personnel carrier in black bra and blue boiler suit with another woman straddling me in red stockings and lipstick heels, the Crown Prosecution Service has charged me and 10 others with impersonating police officers. [...]