Fitwatching Goes Mainstream

It has been fantastic to see the mainstream coverage being given to protesting policing and surveillance with the protester database story and the report into the policing of the Climate Camp making front page news of The Guardian, as well as shocking footage showing the attitude of evidence gatherers towards journalists. This coverage has been extended in the Comment is Free section with various articles, including one by Fitwatch activists.

Since these revelations, Allyn Thomas, Assistant Chief Constable for Kent police has apologised to journalists, and the climate camp report has been referred by Kent police to the IPCC for further investigation. The fitwatchers arrested and remanded at Climate camp are now looking forward to their apology after their charges were recently dropped.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Hartshorn, head of the Public Order Unit, has been busy creating his very own "summer of rage." Whist people arising from their apathy and creating change through confronting corporations and state is a beautiful image, this prediction has arisen from the manipulative mind of a senior police officer rather than political propaganda.

Undoubtedly, Hartshorn will try to use this fantasty to justify a summer of repression against activists. However, public order policing is coming under attack from all angles - and any attempts at crushing dissent will be held accountable.