Our Right.

 

         At the moment Glasgow is in lockdown, nothing to do with covid19, we are in a city under siege simply because the powerful and privileged have descended on our fair city to waffle their way through this period with their art of illusion weaving, and we all know that the powerful and privileged are so loved, they need a wall of armour wrapped around them. This military style police wall snaking its way throughout our city, has another purpose, to stifle and abort protests and intimidate protestors, they want to give the impression that we are all happy with this cop-out-26 carnival of illusions. However, all they are doing is increasing the ever growing public view of the police, that they can't be trusted, to one of a complete sense of loathing. Our right to protest is not a privilege, it is a basic human right, to openly protest at what you see as wrong, unjust, or manufactured lies, at policies and actions that you believe will damage your life or that of others in some way. To stifle this is raising the banner of fascism and confirming, we don't live in a democracy.

COPS & the Right to Protest 

 

Short Reports from NetPol & Scalp
        When the ‘Rail to the COP’ train arrived in Glasgow yesterday evening with young activists from all over Europe, some campaigners holding a ‘Welcome to Scotland’ were reportedly threatened with arrest.
         On the Pilgrims March police threatened all its stewards as "organisers" of an unauthorised procession. One was then picked, had their details taken and told they would be considered for possible prosecution.
        We have heard reports of police increasingly stopping & searching people in Glasgow. Officers are refusing to give a written receipt, even though everyone has a right to receive one.
        Abuse of power should come as no surprise, but now is a good time to memorise the info on our bust card around stop & search.

Police don't keep us safe, we keep us safe.

         One example yesterday involved Metropolitan Police officers, who often pull the excuse that they have "run out of forms" back in London – but how does this meet Police Scotland’s “commitment to upholding human rights”?
        Police are all over Glasgow filming campaigners and Forward Intelligence Team officers (deployed to identify and gather information on activists) have told individuals that “no protesters are allowed” in a number of pubs when there is no protest taking place. 

 

 

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Being Elderly Is No Excuse For protesting!!

        Never hold the opinion that because you are elderly, or walk with the aid of a stick, or are in a wheel chair, that the police will not throw you around in their usual heavy handed manner. On Monday this week in Sheffield, a group of elderly passengers decided to take direct action to protect their travel concessions which were under threat. The protest was organised and staged by a group of elderly and disabled passengers in response to South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive's decision stop their free bus pass travel before 9:30am.

       They decided to travel without paying (their entitlement) and called the journey a “Freedom Ride”. What transpired was the usual heavy handed approach by the transport police, resulting in pensioners with walking sticks being knocked over, elder people hand cuffed, and ending up with cuts and bruises and some being taken to hospital. This is how representative democracy protects your right to peaceful protest. "Democracy" enforced by intimidation and repression.

 

Five rather heavy transport police manhandle pensioner.

This from The Express: 

     They gathered at Sheffield railway station on Monday after travelling without paying from the Meadowhall shopping complex to the city centre in what they billed a “Freedom Ride”.
      Jen Dunstan, of Sheffield Disabled People Against The Cuts, said: “Dozens of elderly and disabled people have been left with bruising. Some have cuts where their skin has broken from being pushed and shoved.”

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

The Rabid Dogs Of The State.

        The rabid dogs of the state have been unleashed in Greece, they are allowed to run wild through the streets, barking and biting at anything that moves. There will be no attempt the rein them in, as the state needs their savagery to intimidate and repress any organising by the people. The fallacy that the police are there to protect the public has long since been exploded, they are the state's first line of defence when the propaganda machine isn't working. According to the powers that be, the will of the people must be controlled, not the brutality of the police.

This From The Greek Streets:

         On Saturday July 20, 2013 “Delta” police thugs entered “Exarhia”, one of the most vibrant areas of Athens, while hundreds of people were attending two different solidarity events to anarchist Kostas Sakkas, who was on hunger strike for 38 days because he was imprisoned in the self-proclaimed “democracy” of Greece for 31 months without a trial.

        As depicted in the video, the “Delta” police thugs on bikes begun to intimidate and chase passers- by for no reason and when people begun to gather reacting to their terrorist tactics, the policemen threw against them flash-bang grenades, asphyxiating gas grenades, flares and even empty glass bottles!

        Hundreds of people gathered at the spot to chase them away and begun to circle them, while residents from their balconies above were throwing water towards the police thugs to force them to leave, following the havoc they caused.

      Confronted by so many people, the Delta police thugs, along with a riot police brigade that was called to assist them, were soon forced to retreat and leave the area.

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Defend The Right To Peaceful Protest.

     Under the state apparatus the right to freedom of speech is always liable to attack, the state would rather we were subservient and obedient. When people start to object to how they are being treated, that's when the state takes off the gloves and it becomes bare-knuckle capitalism with repression and intimidation the tools to get you back in line and obedient. One of Glasgow's past fights to defend the right to freedom of public assemble, was the fight for freedom of speech on Glasgow Green, a fight that lasted from 1922 to 1932, and here we are now in 2013 having once again to fight for the right to public assemble, to voice our concerns on the way our society is heading. It is by continual vigilance and struggle that we hold onto what little freedoms we have, under the present system, they are continually under threat, once gone, the fight to get them back is a much harder struggle than defending them.

Defend The Right To Peaceful Protest.

An open letter from Glasgow against Atos to all Political groups / parties

And Trade Unionists.

DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PEACEFUL PROTEST.

      If you are someone who has been involved in a protest or demonstration in the past few years you may have noticed an increase in the use of certain tactics by the Police.

The brutal tactic of “Kettling”, - the enforced containment of groups of people, is used by Police routinely despite widespread public and legal condemnation of the dangers of this tactic. The Police often use riot shields and employ mounted officers in these situations in which people are corralled and crushed together sometimes for hours on end.

     Forward Intelligence Teams collect information and photograph people attending demonstrations or protests. These photographs are compiled on “Spotter Cards” which are then used to identify individuals.

      At every protest you can be sure to see at least one mobile CCTV unit monitoring the crowd and possibly a helicopter hovering overhead.

      These are not tactics that are reserved for dealing with groups which promote racial hatred such as the Scottish Defence League, but tactics that the police are using increasingly against any group of ordinary people who are voicing their concerns about issues which matter to them and their families.

Ordinary citizens such as environmental campaigners, disabled rights groups, families affected by cuts in public services must have the right to articulate their grievances without interference from the Police. They must be allowed the right of free speech and peaceful protest without attempts by the police to criminalise these basic democratic rights.

      The journalist George Monbiot reported on the misuse of police power during the Kingsnorth Climate camp Campaign. Two female protestors were attacked, arrested and remanded in prison for four days. As George Monbiot commented; “Anyone who seeks political change is treated as if they were an enemy of the public interest”, and, “that the police are turning activism into a crime”. (Guardian 22^nd June 2009).

     The human rights lawyer Michael Mansfield Q.C. remarked that; “Legitimate and peaceful mass demonstrations is being policed off the streets. Increasingly heavy –handed tactics are being employed along with the potentially dangerous practice of kettling or corralling. It is part of a general policy by successive authoritarian governments. They brook no opposition and contrive a compliant society upon which they can wreak havoc with their elitist economic policies”. (Guardian 10^th March 2013).

      During a recent trade visit to Delhi, David Cameron said of the massacre of hundreds of Indians who were protesting against oppressive laws and were shot by British troops in 1919, “We must ensure that the United Kingdom stands up for the right to peaceful protest anywhere in the world”, (The Telegraph 20 February 2013).

      When David Cameron said anywhere in the world – he meant of course anywhere except here! He doesn’t mind democracy and free speech as long as it’s somewhere else. And the politicians are quite happy to give the police a free hand to maintain their position of power and privilege.

We must stop this misuse of police power. It is a scandal that ordinary citizens are being deprived of their democratic right to protest against injustice.

We cannot stand by and watch this happen.

We are not posing a threat to democracy - the police are!

We are not breaking the law - the police are!

To this end we call on all individuals with a concern for free speech and who value the democratic right to protest, all political groups and parties, all trade unionists, all of our fellow citizens suffering repression to join us in condemnation of police harassment and intimidation.

      Although there are many divisions in society at the moment, this is something that affects all of us. We have to be united on this, - do not fall for the police’s divide and rule tactics.

The right to free speech and peaceful protest is the mark of a free society.

As Martin Luther King so eloquently said; “Freedom is never given voluntarily by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”.

      Let us remember this, and unite against those who oppose free speech!

     “Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.”
― Simone Weil

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TODAY GREECE ----TOMORROW ---???

     The powers that be are obviously giving a free hand and support to the fascist gangs of street thugs in an attempt to disrupt any organising by the ordinary people against the savage attack on their living standards by the financial Mafia.

    It is no accident or co-incidence that the police work hand in hand with such gangs as Golden Dawn, it is part of their plan of intimidation and repression.

    Today Greece --- tomorrow --??

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JUST DOING MY DUTY.

     Don't you just love cops!! If they are not beating the shit out of somebody, harassing peaceful protesters, or blasting a tasar at a blind man with a white stick, they are intimidating and provoking at peaceful demonstrations. This recent case in Florida shows the extent of their empathy with the ordinary people.

This from The Miami Herald:

SARASOTA, Fla. -- A homeless man spent the night in a Southwest Florida jail after a police officer accused him of stealing by charging his cellphone at a public park.
   An arrest report says that a Sarasota police sergeant spotted 28-year-old Darren Kersey charging his phone Sunday evening in a public picnic shelter at Gillespie Park. The sergeant told Kersey that the "theft of city utilities will not be tolerated during this bad economy" and then arrested him on a misdemeanor charge of theft of utilities.
    Unable to pay the $500 bond, Kersey spent the night in jail. But the Sarasota Herald-Tribune ( http://bit.ly/W4frm0) reports that Kersey was released Monday morning after a judge threw the case out, saying the sergeant lacked the legal justification to make the arrest.

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Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/12/3094232/homeless-man-jailed-after-charging.html#storylink=cpy

THEY'RE LOOKING FOR ANARCHIST MATERIALS??

         As the people's anger gets organised, so does that state in its attempt to stifle that anger and destroy any organising by the people. It is happening in Italy, Greece, UK, Spain, US, Canada and in most countries across the globe. As the people's anger grows expect the state repression to grow.

Room after police visit.

This from Kasama:

         Early morning, July 10, SWAT police forced their way into the Seattle apartment of organizers from the Occupy movement. The sleeping residents scrambled to put on clothes as they were confronted with automatic weapons.

The neighbor Natalio Perez heard the attack from downstairs: “Suddenly we heard the bang of their grenade, and the crashing as police entered the apartment. The crashing and stomping continued for a long time as they tore the place apart.”

        After the raid, the residents pored over the papers handed them by a detective. One explained: “This warrant says that they were specifically looking for ‘anarchist materials’ — which lays out the political police state nature of this right there. In addition they were looking for specific pieces of clothing supposedly connected with a May First incident.

When the police finally left, they did not arrest anyone. This action targets well known activists from Occupy Seattle and the Red Spark Collective (part of the national Kasama network).
         This apartment has been a hub for organizing the Everything 4 Everyone festival in August – to bring together West Coast forces for a cultural and political event building on the year of Occupy.

       The raid is a heavy-handed threat delivered by armed police aimed at intimidating specific people – but also suppressing the work to continue the Occupy movement in Seattle, and create E4E as a space for radical gathering.

The E4E site will update this with more as we receive it, including hopefully statement from those involved. http://www.everythingforeveryone.org/

Contact: Liam Wright, Red Spark Collective, redsparkcollective@gmail.com

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SURRENDER YOUR RIGHTS AT YOUR PERIL.

      As more and more people take to the streets in lawful and peaceful protest at the savage cuts to their standard of living, the authorities try to quell the unrest with intimidation. Their tactics include, provocative police actions, arrests on the street at peaceful protests, house visits by plain clothes police after the protests and criminalising our youth. It is at times like this that we can take inspiration from  those who took up the struggle before us, today we would do well to remember the words of   John MacLean , one of Glasgow's many great working class fighters, in court at the start of the first world war.

       "No human being on the face of this earth, no government is going to take away my right to speak, my right to protest against wrong, my right to do everything that is for the benefit of mankind. I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of Capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot."

The people are the country or it is fascism.

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