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Sunday, 26 April 2009

Brighton Mayday - Continuing the Resistance

Much publicity (including our own) surrounding the G20 has been based on portraying protesters as victims, instead of celebrating our victories. Both at the G20 and at other demonstrations throughout the last year, people have increasingly been adopting militant tactics and refusing to submit to oppressive policing.

EDO protests in Brighton have been prime examples in this trend. FIT teams have been kept on the run, police lines have been broken, and space has been reclaimed. Protesters have set the terms of their own demonstrations, and despite massive attempts at intimidation, have been extremely successful.

This year, Mayday celebrations will be focused in Brighton with Smash EDO calling for a "mass street party against war and greed." Fitwatch will be supporting this call and are asking for as many people as possible to adopt Fitwatch tactics and shut the evidence gatherers down.

Given the G20 publicity, policing Brighton Mayday will be in the spotlight. The FIT teams and their masters at the Public Order Unit are responsible for the G20 policing, and they are responsible for Ian Tomlinson's death. We must show we will not tolerate these officers on our demonstrations, and we must hold them to account for their actions.

We are not all victims. Some of us are fighting back. Join Fitwatch and continue this resistance.

There will also be a Fitwatch workshop in Brighton at the Anti-Militarist Gathering at the Cowley Club, 10am, 3rd May.
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23 comments:

McGonagall said...

Any cop that conceals his identity should be considered a terrorist and given the de Menezes treatment.

26 April 2009 at 11:10
gene hunt said...

''millitant tactics'' ''fighting back'' how are these tactics not to be considered agressive and dealt with appropriatly by the police. You really do contradict yourselves alot

27 April 2009 at 14:41
Anonymous said...

gene hunt
You're very optimistic, to think the police will ever react appropriately to anything.

27 April 2009 at 22:48
Really Fit said...

Militant and fighting back, yes Gene Hunt, this is how it is. People are no longer prepared to simply tolerate intimidation, harassment and unprovoked violence from the police. What did you expect? That we would remain happy for ever to be herded and kettled, stopped and searched, photographed and databased?

Sussex police can avoid all this by sitting well back and allowing the protest and party to take place without interference, intimidation or surveillance. No raids, no filming, no cordons, no pepper spray, no section 60 orders, no conditions on procession or assembly, no batons, no dogs. None of the things they did last time, in fact.

We live in hope.

28 April 2009 at 04:06
Anonymous said...

Just watched the film on the climate camp eviction on the top of the blog

Shows what happens when people don't fight back. They just get batoned.

28 April 2009 at 04:43
gene hunt said...

''Militant and fighting back, yes Gene Hunt, this is how it is. People are no longer prepared to simply tolerate intimidation, harassment and unprovoked violence from the police. What did you expect? That we would remain happy for ever to be herded and kettled, stopped and searched, photographed and databased?

Sussex police can avoid all this by sitting well back and allowing the protest and party to take place without interference, intimidation or surveillance. No raids, no filming, no cordons, no pepper spray, no section 60 orders, no conditions on procession or assembly, no batons, no dogs. None of the things they did last time, in fact.''

yes so what your basically asking is that the laws that everyone else abides by and lives with are not applied to you, and all the people who you will inconvenience are to just get on with it because what they think andhow they wish to live are not as important as you or what you think or wish to do.
So the police stand back and let you get on with it then someone starts to cause trouble (which i dont care what anyone says will happen its inevitable in a big group of people under the influence)what should the police do then, say if people start to cause criminal damage or use illegal substances, or commit publis order offences. The police should just stand back and let them get on with it i suppose by your logic.
PS. whats with deleting peoples comments on other threads I thought you lot were all for freedom of speech?

28 April 2009 at 09:10
Anonymous said...

gene hunt

when comments are so off topic it's ridiculous or where they're riddled with abuse and inaccuracies they will be deleted. easier to delete than to watch debate descend into tit for tat.

28 April 2009 at 23:59
Clovis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
28 April 2009 at 23:59
Anonymous said...

Dear Swampy

I hope they thump you until you are black and blue.

A Taxpayer

29 April 2009 at 04:04
Clovis said...

dear taxpayer

is that so your taxes can be redistributed following a successful case against the police?

29 April 2009 at 05:14
Anonymous said...

To quote " Anonymous said...
gene hunt

when comments are so off topic it's ridiculous or where they're riddled with abuse and inaccuracies they will be deleted. easier to delete than to watch debate descend into tit for tat."

Why is the top post on here, oh, cos you don't like REAL freedom of speech, only that which agrees with you or suits your purpose.

29 April 2009 at 06:24
Clovis said...

If you look on any message board, you'll find comments deleted for a range of reasons. Should you look through past comments here you'll find that we've left a wide range of opinion posted, and you'll find your claims unsubstantiated. You may disagree with us leaving scunnert's post up; that's your prerogative.

29 April 2009 at 15:38
McGonagall said...

Did my wee post cause offense? Like Bush, Blair, and Brown I believe that the war against terrorism should begin at home. We can't afford to be too soft on these folks who threaten our way of life - our very freedoms and liberties ( is that a tautology? ). We can't bow to the extremists - we must not let fear lead to inaction.

The terrorists, whether home grown or foreign, must learn that we will defend our nation against their violence, corruption, and despotism. We will never surrender.

29 April 2009 at 17:25
Clovis said...

scunnert

you said "did my wee post cause offense"

only to cops and their running dogs

30 April 2009 at 00:06
Anonymous said...

there is no freedom of speech even here, you've admitted censorship to your own ends, time to shut up shop and go home, you're just as bad, if not worse than those you complain about.

30 April 2009 at 00:34
parent activist said...

was just wondering what the situation is with children at demos. Do the police have the legal right to film and photograph them?

30 April 2009 at 04:03
Clovis said...

no one in a public place has a right to privacy, legally. but that doesn't mean that the police have the 'right' to take anyone's picture, even children. you are under no obligation to cooperate with police photographers, and i'd think it unlikely that even the most assiduous plod would invoke powers to remove a mask from a child. so, you would be quite entitled to obstruct their view to prevent them taking a picture of the child. but depending on the likely tenor of the demonstration, you may wish to leave the child/ren behind.

30 April 2009 at 06:21
Clovis said...

anonymous 0034

as you can see from your comment remaining up, there is freedom of speech. unless you know what was in the deleted comments, it's a bit rich for you to make your unfounded claim. debate proceeds here as usual, whereas timewasting posts of neither interest or value have to take their chance. the point you're trying to make has been made, and there's no point continuing to repeat it. you can throw a dead fish into the water as hard as you like, you still won't make it swim.

30 April 2009 at 06:24
Really Fit said...

Parent activist

Police, as anyone else, can film in a public place, as long as the filming does not infringe your 'private life'. Normally that means that the instant you and your family step into the outside world, you may be photographed. But, the law on privacy is as clear as mud, and it is possible that police photographing a targets family may be an infringement of their private life.

I think the police are a little jittery about this one, and if you do find they are taking photos of you children at demos, I'd suggest getting some legal advice.

1 May 2009 at 05:38
Anonymous said...

''I'd suggest getting some legal advice.''

Id suggest getting a life

1 May 2009 at 14:03
Martin said...

Gene Hunt has got a point. You ask for the police to stay at home but, only for you. You don’t want the law to apply to you? Only everyone else? Are your really suggesting getting thousands of people together and having no police presence.

For starters the pickpockets would love that. The drug dealers (Brighton has the highest drug death rate in the UK) would be all over the place.

Mass scale disorder. Breaking in to EDOs factory, again. I suppose the police should let their two security guards just get on with it, never mind them paying tax and being entitled to police protection of persons and property.

Sarcasm and tit- for tat aside (its coming from both sides before you comment), but many people may agree with the cause, but you loose confidence and support when you start closing roads off for long periods of time, destroying public property (lots of anti-EDO graffiti across the city, which the taxpayer pays to have removed).

The argument is that its for the greater good right? People being killed by our bombs and we should all look at the bigger picture. NO. That’s not how I feel. I am a tax payer and an individual. I voted this government in and I will probably vote the gits out in the next election, but I do not and will never support people disrupting and damaging my home town for a casue they want to raise awareness for.

I also support the police. They work for a democratically elected government and abide by the laws our elected movement set up. Any unlawful exercising of powers, or excessive force is investigated by the IPCC who are independent, and those cops get booted out and prosecuted. End off. So the police should, as a whole, be supported unless you have evidence to suggest they are not working in the interest of public safety.

These protests seem to be about the police, not the real cause. The bomb factory’s, the war etc. Its nothing to do with the police. Often protests rely on the police to lose roads off and make protests run more smoothly and stop protesters getting hurt by motorists, often very angry motorists.

If you support freedom of speech and expression – lots of things in the Human Rights Act – to you support the human rights of the staff at EDO? The staff who make lots of things, not just release mechanisms? There are even staff there who have nothing to do with release mechanisms for bombs but yet still get called child killers. Is that fair on their human rights?

4 May 2009 at 01:15
Anonymous said...

To Scunert - how do you know the one stitch that keeps it in place did not snap - it was a riot after all.

4 May 2009 at 01:22
Really Fit said...

Martin

What did you do to raise this issue before the Smash EDO campaign came along? How has EDO or any other arms manufacurer been called to account in any other way than by causing civil unrest?

I'm sure you don't like the property damage, the disorder, the mayhem. So what about putting some pressure on the democratic system you seem to have faith in to get a political solution to this? Go on, convince us that the writing letters, lobbying MPs, holding 'peaceful' protest thing actually works.

Personally, I am quite convinced that without a baying mob outside such tactics are completely useless.

Governments who give greater priority to the needs of a particular business sector over the lives of millions will not be won over because people ask nicely.

6 May 2009 at 01:35

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