The Top Ten G20 Protestor CamCorders
A delegation of Liberal Democrat MPs will be on the ground in the City of London tomorrow to observe and monitor the policing of the G20 protests. It is hoped that their presence will help to defuse any escalation in tensions between police and protesters, as well as providing credible witnesses to any abuse of police powers.
LibDems are watching the police:
Post 4: At 2am the peaceful Climate Camp on Bishopsgate was quashed by police.
Though relations had been good throughout the day riot police were sent to move the protesters and their tents so the road could be reopened…..
“This morning they broke the camp at around 2am. We were all sitting down and the police started picking people off and dragging them out and arresting them. Then the riot police rushed us. A lot of us were trampled and lots of us are seriously bruised.
Heavy boots on tarmac. Pounding the beats:
The papers are leading with news that a demonstrator died after being found unconscious and not breathing at the Bank around 7.30pm last night (and that police and medics were attacked when they went in to help). There’s no news yet on cause of death.
About 90 people were arrested by the end of yesterday for offences including possession of knives, violent disorder, burglary and arson. Most arrests happened towards the end of the day (at 9pm police were reporting 24 arrests) – did most of the trouble happen after people were released from the kettles?
Kettling. Who you callin’ a kettle, Sooty?
Lord Hope’s view was that the importance of “measures taken in the interests of public safety” were all on the side of allowing the police containment tactics. The Austin and Saxby case foundered because of very prejudicial findings by the judge at the first instance about what actually happened at the 2001 May Day protests. Austin, who the court accepted was a lawful and peaceful demonstrator prevented by her detention from collecting her child, is to take her case to the European Court of Human Rights. It is to be hoped the ECHR will look again at the question of whether the “balance” and “public safety” is all on the side of allowing the police to carry out long containments or whether such imprisonment does not after all breach fundamental rights.
Imprisonment by not being allowed to move freely about the street you want to “reclaim”.
Caroline Lucas has more?
Yet not far away a very different kind of protest sprang up, as a flash mob of climate campers closed a street for 12 hours in order to highlight what can be achieved if we focus creatively on solutions, as well as problems.
Bunting, spring flowers, a farmer’s market stall selling cake and vegetables, workshops and a pedal powered sound system. These all combined to ensure that the camp set up outside the carbon exchange on Bishopsgate was an example of workable alternatives to the capitalism and environmental destruction that have got us into our current economic and ecological mess.
That’s the way. You can bank on bunting to solve it all. If it wasn’t for bunting, why, we’d all be speaking German.
Also on the amrch for [insert cause here; Let’s Kill Polar Bears Now!] was Melvyn’s renegade son Billy Bragg, singing up for the common maaaaaayaaan:
The musicians Billy Bragg and Robin Gibb have joined forces with the record producer Pete Waterman, accusing Google of devaluing songwriters amid a row over royalties.
In the dispute, music videos have been taken down from YouTube UK because its owner, Google, says that it cannot afford to pay a fee every time a song is streamed from the video website. In a letter to The Times, the three men say that Google “ascribes little value to music — in spite of a huge increase in music usage” — because of its refusal to pay, and called on YouTube to reinstate music videos “and pay a fair price for it”.
But your price is too high and they cannot afford to pay it.
How does capitalism work again?
Posted: 2nd, April 2009 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
