Policing at the G20

[the_lady_lily]

I'm fairly certain that if you are on LJ and paying even a small degree of attention to your friends page, you will have seen coverage about police brutality at the G20 protest.

They baton charged a prayer meeting. And that's just for starters.

For an overview of the chronology and some of the issues, libellum has done an excellent round-up post here.

If you only read one link, make it What I Saw, a collection of eye witness accounts of police conduct.

I'm not interested in a discussion of whether 'peaceful' protest is possible. What I'm furious about are the policing tactics that have been used in what seems to have been a peaceful demonstration.

Write to your MP. If you're in London, write to your London Assembly Member as well. Write To Them will do all the work for you. Point them to 'What I Saw'. If nothing else, it will make them see - at least for a moment.

Comments

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Done. I'm not at all convinced my MP would help (though I may write to him as well) but with the number of London Assembly members who represent me, there should be some useful ones there.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

I'm figuring that if enough people bother to write, and bother to make a fuss, it will have some impact. As libellum says, it's one thing for the death of Ian Tomlinson to take front page, but the whole approach to policing these events needs to be examined, not just this one incident.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I worry that this happened because it has been examined, and changed.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

I should, incidentally, have mentioned that when I last wrote to my MP about the Craig Murray e-mail deletion business, I got a formal response letter in fairly quick time and a good old-fashioned denunciation of torture. I'm hoping for the goods this time around as well.

[metonymy.livejournal.com]

Any recommendations for non-UK folk who are similarly horrified?

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Not that I know of, I'm afraid - unless you feel like writing to the US Ambassador to England, asking him to hold the government to account for the behaviour of their police? I'm fairly sure some foreign nationals must have been involved, and to express concern about the way American citizens could be treated under these circumstances seems an entirely fair subject for an Ambassador to speak about.

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

I can vouch for the integrity of the person running "what I saw", as she's someone I know IRL. Some of the others writing there, I also know IRL.

Will be getting onto MP, local council etc.

[sammee42.livejournal.com]

This is absolutely dreadful and disgusting. How awful. =(