Peaceful Protest

[Duskwaith]

Hey,

After coming back from a peaceful protest over tuition fees that went wrong I have to say what can be deemed as peaceful?

The protest I was at moved onto the road at one stage prompting the police to come in large numbers. A few idiots through empty bottles and an orange at one stage but other than that it was a totally peaceful protest.

Yet after about an hour of being on the road we were subjected to a charge from the riot police with batons in an attempt to displace us. An hour or so later the police formed two "conga line" formations and quite literally battered their way through the protest punching and kicking as they went in an effort to remove us from the road. Busting a number of peoples faces. We were never asked to remove ourselves from the area prior to this.

We didnt resist just stood there and got bloodied by the police. The Press also falsly reported the events even deliberatly leaving pictures of the peaceful aspect of the event out

So Escapists do you think that this peaceful protest was deserving of such heavy handedness and were do you draw the line between letting a peaceful protest carry on and useing force to break up a group of people protesting

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I think the police's use of kettling was a deliberate attempt to make or provoke the onset of violence. I think they wanted the protests to turn bad, and I think the government wanted them to as well.

If I were being deeply paranoid, I'd even accuse someone somewhere of having deliberately orchestrated events to make sure violence happened.

Also, I think if the government is doing something which results in peaceful protests, followed by riots and an assault on the Royal Family, perhaps they should consider that what they're doing is a bad fucking idea.

 

[Mr Shrike]

To be honest, I think the Police massively overreacted to the protests. Yes, there were a few trouble makers, but still...

Plus, they said that the march would not be kettled. Then the march got kettled.

Oh well, at least we have a reason to get angry now.

EDIT:

If the government is doing something which results in peaceful protests, followed by riots and an assault on the Royal Family, perhaps they should consider that what they're doing is a bad fucking idea.

Well said. Pretty much this ^

Also, what's the bet that the students will get all the blame for the Police Brutality? That goddamn horseback charge was totally unecessary.

 

[imnot]

I think the police's use of kettling was a deliberate attempt to make or provoke the onset of violence. I think they wanted the protests to turn bad, and I think the government wanted them to as well.

If I were being deeply paranoid, I'd even accuse someone somewhere of having deliberately orchestrated events to make sure violence happened.

Also, I think if the government is doing something which results in peaceful protests, followed by riots and an assault on the Royal Family, perhaps they should consider that what they're doing is a bad fucking idea.

This, It's blloody pathetic what's been said on the news and I have to admit I lol'd at the picture of the royal family.

 

[Verlander]

After the last two, you should have expected this. I mean, students trashed buildings, and assaulted the police. This time you guys assaulted the future King. I know you personally may not have, nor people around you, but like everything else there is always a few that let down the rest. Remember: Behaving like a child validates "the man".

Stop with the peaceful protesting. United, the student body is the largest legal and political institution in the country. With the lecturers on your side, you have easily enough smarts to launch a legal campaign against the government for a case of such obvious deceit. I mean, there are hundreds of law students in the country. If it comes to it, SUE the sodding government, we live in a capitalist world right? The Lib Dems got in due to the student vote, via lying. So remove the Lib Dems from the seats. They are public servants, and if you studied and researched instead of protested, you might accomplish something. Good luck to you.

 

[DuplicateValue]

I think protests are silly anyway, they rarely change anything.

But no, I don't think your protest deserved the violence it received from the police. Though I wonder who made the decision to use force - the policemen themselves were probably just doing what they were told.

 

[El Poncho]

I think it's terrible how they treated the protests, the police seriously need to rethink how they handle them without violence.

Even an 'attack' on the royal family didn't change the governments minds, shame.
Also Cameron said that people responsible for the violence should feel the full force of the law, maybe he should see that him not taking the hint from the past protests makes him partially responsible.

 

[Jonluw]

So long as I have no information regarding what protest you are talking about, to make my own - informed - decision, I will not take the word of some stranger off the internet that the protests were truly peaceful, and that the police had no reason to use force.
Just saying, this OP is awfully one-sided.

 

[Rachel317]

I think the police's use of kettling was a deliberate attempt to make or provoke the onset of violence. I think they wanted the protests to turn bad, and I think the government wanted them to as well.

Absolutely agreed. If students riot, the Government can turn around and say, "Do these people really deserve ANY help??" Thus, Government = good, students = evil.

In some places, it was necessary for the police to use force, due to the onslaught from the protesters (and anarchists, more than anything) but if your protest was as peaceful as you say, then no, the police were completely wrong.

See, this is why I stayed well out of them (I'm a student too); you can't trust your fellow protesters to not be trouble makers, and you can't necessarily trust the police to have your best interests at heart. They're funded by the government...no one else will be pulling their strings.

Sorry to hear you had such a bad time of it, though. Violence from the police like that is completely unnecessary. Hope you didn't get injured or anything.

 

[spidermounky]

typical govement tring to blame eveything on us there the ones rasing prices unverstiy admisens probley to speend exter money on a duck house or something

 

[emeraldrafael]

I think a peaceful protest in and of itself is a massive waste of time. I mean, unless you're getting MLK Jr. or Ghandi numbers, you're just being an inconvenience.

Also, I believe you're in the wrong for blocking a road in general. Yes, they could have asked, but you have to have permits and forms and things of that nature to stage a protest (at least in America. Not sure if thats where you were). And even then, you dont block a road. Thats just dumb. Hell, I can pretty much say for a fact you werent in America cause a motorist would have just run a few of you down (I know, thats stereotyping Americans and being extreme).

So you're both in the wrong, but you protesters more so. Dont block a road. Go do it in a park or something, where people will be sympathetic to your cause, not in the middle of a road where people drive down and will end up being Pissed about.

And... you had provoked the police twice first (even if it was just a fwe idiots).

 

[Aulleas123]

Any protest, whether meant to be peaceful or violent, is always going to be regarded by the worst of its characters. For example, most TEA party people are not crazed racist skinheads and most of the people who went to the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear are not pothead hippie communists. Most of the people who protest in London are not crazed bloodthirsty student terrorists, however the media will do a good job of focusing on the worst of your crowd.

That and throwing stuff at the Prince's car might not have been so prudent. Again, not meaning to judge everyone, just the crazed few.

 

[TaboriHK]

Peaceful protest in my opinion is designated by lack of violence and utter irrelevance.

 

[Sexbad]

I found this video on YouTube. Happy happy joy fun at 1:28 when a riot cop hits someone in the shins without the victim doing anything to provoke it.

 

[fullbleed]

If the protests haven't significantly changed the tuition fees then if nothing else we can at elast hope to change police protest tactics in future.

Although you could've said the same thing about the G20 protests last year where the same ketling tactics were used and police brutality was at almost equal levels to today. And of course nothing has changed since then, and the police fucking killed an inocent man that day, Ian Tomlinson. It was all caught on film and no one was ever charged or repremanded.

I don't want to be one of those kind of people who says "Fuck tha police!" with reckless abandon. But it's an incredible conflict of emotions when the people you respect and you expect to protect you every day are beating innocent people and refusing them medical care, and charging children on horseback, or draging disabled people from their wheelchairs. Police at protests aren't going to be nice people, and unless you go to a lot of football matches then this will be a perspective of the police that people will be unused to.

People should not stop protesting though, while violence and destruction will attract media attention its the wrong kind of attention. How newspapers will have headlines and snapshots of Camilla's stupid face during the protest, and how many will be focusing on the actual damage of the cuts and what this means for students? Of course the exact oposite of the scale doesn't work either, the NUS has pretty pathetic overall during these protests. A candle light vigil, mass christmas cards? Yeah that'll get a message across you losers. If you want to be heard you do have to shout.

Sickening, hands up in deffence walking backwards.

 

[Snake Plissken]

Hey,

After coming back from a peaceful protest over tuition fees that went wrong I have to say what can be deemed as peaceful?

The protest I was at moved onto the road at one stage prompting the police to come in large numbers. A few idiots through empty bottles and an orange at one stage but other than that it was a totally peaceful protest.

Yet after about an hour of being on the road we were subjected to a charge from the riot police with batons in an attempt to displace us. An hour or so later the police formed two "conga line" formations and quite literally battered their way through the protest punching and kicking as they went in an effort to remove us from the road. Busting a number of peoples faces. We were never asked to remove ourselves from the area prior to this.

We didnt resist just stood there and got bloodied by the police. The Press also falsly reported the events even deliberatly leaving pictures of the peaceful aspect of the event out

So Escapists do you think that this peaceful protest was deserving of such heavy handedness and were do you draw the line between letting a peaceful protest carry on and useing force to break up a group of people protesting

There's a decent article written by Chris Hannah of Propagandhi claiming that the government uses protests as miniature war games in order to procure more money for armed forces.

Spoiler: Check it out by clicking here! Wall of text, but WORTH THE READ!

Cop Car Burned! All Criticisms of Global Capitalism Rendered Moot!

i don?t endorse violence. i don?t think it?s the ideal way forward to a better society. i think all sane people would agree. heck, i don?t even endorse vandalism in the ?service? of social change. i?m conservative that way. but the disproportionate reaction (to the disproportionate mainstream media coverage) to the image of a burning car and some broken windows at the G20 summit in toronto needs to be put into perspective.

i won?t bother with the obvious comparative study of the isolated ?violence? of a handful of protestors versus the overwhelming violence practiced day in and day out at the expense of millions upon millions of human lives by national states the world over in order to secure their geopolitical interests. too easy. too obvious. too fundamental.

i will however, point out that unless you?ve been in the situation of being a direct, physical and psychological target of overwhelming and belligerent street-level force FUNDED BY YOUR OWN TAX DOLLARS, it can be hard to understand the frustration and rage that can build over the course of an afternoon let alone over the course of a lifetime.

hell, you don?t even have to have experienced it directly. just sitting on our couches in our homes, cursing the stinking system, we all know that the state has a monopoly on ultimate violence and total control. otherwise it wouldn?t exist as it does, right? things would be different, cause we would have gotten up off our couches and changed it if we were operating on a level playing field. but their is no level playing field between the state and its subjects. citizens plainly have insufficient institutional power to derail the sociopathic behaviour of the prevailing order. frustration and rage is the predictable result.

that frustration and rage is exacerbated when you?re pitted face to face against a wall of riot cops who are alternately corralling and intentionally provoking your otherwise peaceful demonstration into a corner, firing rubber bullets at you, detaining and searching you with no cause, hitting you with batons, singling out and abducting organizers, impersonating protesters, firing gas canisters intentionally at head level, exploding sound grenades by your ears, permanently damaging your body with exposure to chemical bombs (all based on personal experience by the way) and then having it all portrayed in the media as if it were YOU that needs to be restrained and punished rather than the megalomaniacs on the other side of the fence that continue to plunder and pillage the planet at these obnoxious publicly-funded private-parties of the global elite.

in these situations, there is only so much futility a person can take before their rage can get the best of them and a burning cop car or a smashed bank window starts to look pretty appealing. yes, these are futile acts, but what do we expect people to do when they are treated like shit and the justice system does nothing to intervene on their behalf?

sure, ideally we could all rise above it and aim for a perfect, superhuman state of restraint. sure. and yes, ideally i too would prefer the demonstrations were strictly peaceful (for strategic reasons mainly) and that other, more polarizing means of demonstration and protest and disruption occurred outside of these public gatherings (where they would be more effective).

but the people who manage the security state won?t let that happen anyways. they WANT violence. they provoke it. why? it justifies their absurd budgets. it lets them test and refine (and demonstrate to the rest of the population) their methods of population control in a managed setting, preparing for the day that the shit really hits the fan and the police state finally gets to give up any pretense of democracy. why else would they have the summit in fucking downtown toronto, where spirited protest was absolutely certain to occur, rather than on some cruise-ship in the atlantic where it could all be completely avoided? these are essentially war-games being staged on our nickel. and we, the people, are the enemy.

so let?s just try to keep things in perspective when corporate media habitually fails to hold concentrations of global power to any sliver of account and instead chooses to replay footage of a stupid burning cop car on a loop for hours on end as their marquee story.

there are plenty of examples of independent video footage of cops provoking and mistreating people at the G20 summit surfacing on the net. do yourself a favour and check them out and ask yourself how you would feel if you were on the receiving end of it. or if it were a member of your family.

that?s all i got to say.

 

[TheReactorSings]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Tomlinson

 

[Simalacrum]

I was at the protest as well, and I am utterly appalled not only at the police for the blatantly violent and illegal methods, but also at the media for largely ignoring these aspects of the protest and portraying us in an extremely negative light.

I don't know about you, but I was one of the thousand-odd protestors who found themselves in Parliament Square. We were kettled in and refused exit. When we realised that shit was getting extremely dangerous, we went to the police lines and asked incredibly politely if we were allowed to leave. They refused and told us to head towards Whitehall if we wished to go out. Whitehall happened to be the most violent area of the protest at Parliament. Nevertheless we headed over there, at which point we were rounded up, pushed back by the riot police, with people crying and innocent protestors in utter panic. I was nearly mugged by a hooligan while we ran away from the onslaught, and was prevented from being beaten the shit out of only by a friend who happened to be able to break me off the man.

Eventually we went to the Westminster Abbey side, which, contrary to media reports, was incredibly peaceful. They were letting people out little by little, and everyone was queuing and even preventing more violently minded people at the back from pushing forwards. At one point, however, we were told to head to Westminster Bridge instead, saying that they had opened it up and were letting people out. When I said that I appreciated the information but would rather stay and leave through Westminster Abbey, the police yet again surged forwards, batons out.

We were herded onto Westminster Bridge which, contrary to what the police said, was not open, and were illegally detained there for nearly 3 hours, during which we were provided with no food, water, toiletry, safety and in the freezing cold. (I am in fact uploading footage of this right now, and will post it once it is complete)

People need to realise that the media, police and politicians are very much wrong about what happened; it was not the protestors but rather the police who terrorised the students and protestors, apparently on purpose. In many cases people fought back against the police in panic and self defence.

I think that the police had no right at all to be so violent against the protestors in this situation. I even heard reports that claimed that police were showing restraint by not using firearms on innocent protestors. This entire situation is appalling and people need to hear the truth!

 

[Trivun]

After the last two, you should have expected this. I mean, students trashed buildings, and assaulted the police. This time you guys assaulted the future King. I know you personally may not have, nor people around you, but like everything else there is always a few that let down the rest. Remember: Behaving like a child validates "the man".

Stop with the peaceful protesting. United, the student body is the largest legal and political institution in the country. With the lecturers on your side, you have easily enough smarts to launch a legal campaign against the government for a case of such obvious deceit. I mean, there are hundreds of law students in the country. If it comes to it, SUE the sodding government, we live in a capitalist world right? The Lib Dems got in due to the student vote, via lying. So remove the Lib Dems from the seats. They are public servants, and if you studied and researched instead of protested, you might accomplish something. Good luck to you.

That's exactly what the NUS are trying to do. 'Right to recall', it's called. Basically, it means that if an MP breaks a promise or contract they have made regarding what they will do for their constituency, then the people have the right to demand that the MP in question be removed from power and a replacement take their seat in Parliament. Or at least, that's how I understand it. The NUS wants to invoke that right on all the Lib Dem MPs who abstained or voted for the cuts, who signed the pledge before the elections that they wouldn't do so. Note that the list of MPs under threat includes Nick Clegg, so if he gets removed from his position as MP then a very wide gap is going to open with regards to the current government and the power structure of the Liberal Democrats. In internet jargon, you could say the right to recall is 'serious business'...

As for me, I voted Lib Dem this year. Because my local MP, while I'm living here in Leeds, is Greg Mulholland, who was one of the Lib Dem candidates who signed the pledge. He has basically been in support all along for student rights and he led a backbench revolt to try and force the Lib Dems to vote against the cuts, a move that sadly didn't work. To be fair to both sides of the coin here, he knows that because there is a massive student population in his constituency, people like me, then he needs to keep us on side in order to keep his power. But also, when you look at his voting record, he has always been unafraid to speak out and do what he thinks is right. Those aren't my words, by the way, they're from a website that monitors politicians and their voting records, expenses, all sorts of things to try and keep the government somewhat transparent: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/greg_mulholland/leeds_north_west

Personally I fully support the NUS in what they're trying to do. If those who had abstained or voted 'Yes' to the cuts in the Lib Dems had instead voted 'No', then we wouldn't have this mess, or not as big a mess anyway. The people put them into power based on a promise that the party made. Those who broke those promise need to remember, we, the people, put them where they are. We have the power, and the right, to remove them from that place too. This is a democracy, after all.