Talkin Bout a Revolution

[Jan Klimkowski]

The "appalling" kettling video can be seen here, after some irritating advert.

Kettling video 'appalling', police watchdog panel chair says

Victoria Borwick encourages protesters at anti-student fees demonstration to make complaints against Metropolitan police after 'ghastly' incident

Shiv Malik, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 December 2010 14.16 GMT

The chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority's civil liberties panel has condemned video footage appearing to show protesters being crushed by police attempting to contain them in a "kettle" during student anti-fees demonstrations in London two weeks ago as "appalling" and "ghastly".

Victoria Borwick, who is also a Conservative member of the Greater London Authority, encouraged protesters to make official complaints against the Met and said other police forces were making a better job of public order policing.

"Other forces do this much better," she told the Guardian. "They are very clear with protesters and tell them beforehand what they will do… I hope people make proper complaints to the police about this."

The MPA, the body that scrutinises the work of the Met, said it would be calling a senior police officer to report formally on tactics used during the four student demonstrations over the last two months.

Footage recorded on a mobile phone by an Oxford University postgraduate student shows protesters shouting and screaming "there's no room" and "there's no space" as police try to push them back with riot shields.

Someone, believed to be a protester, can be heard shouting: "You're going to fucking kill someone tonight."

Towards the end of the film, shot near Westminster underground station a few hours before protesters were kettled on Westminster bridge, mounted officers can be seeing using their horses to push the crowd back further.

Borwick said: "The MPA civil liberties panel is there to restore confidence in public order policing and then, when you see videos like this, people get very, very angry.

"People can't run rampant around London, but it [the footage] is appalling … it looks ghastly. You can hear in the tone of people's voices that they are distressed."

Musab Younis, 22, from Manchester, who is currently reading international relations at Wadham College, says he started shooting the video not long after the result of the tuition fees vote was announced to the crowd gathered outside parliament.

"A lot of people were trying to leave the kettle and the police were trying to move in, trying to push people further into Parliament Square," he said.

Younis estimates that around 1,000 people were being held next to Westminster tube station, around 20 metres from the bridge, when police began moving in from both sides, crushing those in the crowd.

"We were hemmed in by a wall on one side, vans and horses on another side, and two lines of police moving in on us," he said.

"I don't know [if] I've ever been in a situation where I've been so crushed before. The police didn't care whether you had any space to move, and if they had to trample you to move forward, then they would."

Younis, the deputy editor of Ceasefire magazine, told the Guardian he had been trapped in previous kettles at the G20 protests, during which Ian Tomlinson, a bystander, was killed.

"This was a far more aggressive form of kettling," he said.

"We were pleading with the police on the front lines, saying 'there's no space, you are hurting people, people are in real pain'. There was a girl who couldn't breathe.

"We got no response. And if you didn't move, they'd kick you in the shins. It sounded like serious injuries were occurring because of the insanely small space they'd given us.

"The worst part wasn't in the video. The police knocked my phone out of my hands and they continued to move in tighter and tighter, and there was crying and screaming. I couldn't even hold the camera up because I couldn't lift my arms it was so tight," he added.

David Hough, a 51-year-old supply teacher who was also caught in up the kettle, said: "As at Hillsborough, people were being squashed against a solid object and they were saying 'I can't breathe'."

Jenny Jones, a Green party GLA and civil liberties panel member who also viewed the footage, said: "This kettling incident by the Met is the most disturbing so far in a sequence that gets more risky and threatening with each repeat.

"The use of horses in such a situation is astonishing, and I'll be raising this with the commissioner [Sir Paul Stephenson]."

David Mead, an expert in public order policing and law at the University of East Anglia, said physically restricting the space occupied by protesters was a significant development from previous kettling exercises. "I suspect this is likely not to be a lawful kettle," he added.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan police said: "Containment and dispersal is a tactic available to us, but it is only used as a tactic of last resort to prevent an actual or imminent breach of the peace.

"We consider the health and wellbeing of those within the containment and will attend to the needs of any vulnerable people, looking to release them at the earliest opportunity.

"Containment and dispersal will always be done in a controlled way to protect those involved and those in the immediate vicinity, but also to protect any evidence and any investigation."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/22...e-watchdog

Here's an article about pending legal action:

Metropolitan Police face legal action for kettling children during tuition fees protest

Human rights group Liberty sues Scotland Yard over violent tactics against teenagers during London tuition fees demonstration

Mark Townsend, home affairs editor
The Observer, Sunday 26 December 2010

Scotland Yard is facing legal action over claims that officers "falsely imprisoned" and assaulted schoolchildren during a tuition fees protest in London last month.

In what is believed to be the first lawsuit taken against police in connection with the violence, lawyers from human rights group Liberty have notified the Metropolitan Police of legal action involving minors who suffered "inhuman and degrading treatment" during a protest on 24 November.

The organisation claims the treatment of children amounted to a breach of their human rights after they were "kettled" by officers during the demonstrations for up to nine hours in cold conditions, without food, and were denied medical help despite some of them suffering injuries, including at least two fractures.

The claim is on behalf of three young protesters, one of whom is a 15-year-old whose foot was broken after allegedly being struck by an officer when trying to leave a police kettle and who claims she was subsequently refused medical help. Another is a 17-year-old London student who became so distressed inside the "kettle" that her father said she came away suffering from shock. The third is Rory Evans, 19, whose ankle was broken during a crowd surge among protesters contained between police lines.

Lawyers believe the Met breached the European convention on human rights on at least four counts. The case is believed to be the first of what many observers believe could be a number against police over the protests.

The 15-year-old claimant, a GCSE pupil who was wearing her school uniform, describes how she became anxious while "kettled" and decided to go home. The teenager was climbing a gate to leave when an officer pulled her down and struck her.

A letter to Scotland Yard's legal team states: "The police officer continued to pull her down, causing her to fall on to the floor. She picked herself back up and the police officer then hit her hard on her foot with a baton. She was then alone in the 'kettled' area and barely able to walk unassisted." "She was extremely cold and frightened and in a great deal of pain," the letter adds.

The 17-year-old, an A-level student, joined the protest and was kettled within 15 minutes of arriving in Whitehall. For six hours she unsuccessfully asked officers to allow her to leave because she was desperate to go to the toilet. At 6pm, portable toilets were delivered outside the "kettle", but after the teenager was allowed to use them she was escorted back inside the crowd. She has described seeing a woman pleading to be released because she felt nauseous. Later she was escorted from the kettle, vomited by the side of the road and was taken back into the kettle without receiving any medical attention.

After seven hours police said she could leave when her father turned up.

The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the Observer: "It's disappointing that young people had their opportunity to express themselves taken away. There are not many positive things for young people who are categorised as yobs and will be forced to pay ridiculous amounts for university. The police tactics made a mockery of pluralism in democracy."

The final case involves Evans, a recent school leaver who described how people "kettled" in Whitehall resembled a "large tide" against lines of police with officers pushing back. He said people started to fall and he became trapped, with other demonstrators falling on his ankle and causing it to break. Evans noticed young people in school uniform who had also fallen. In serious pain, the teenager was eventually released from the kettle but, although he asked police, they did not seek medical attention for him nor know where to find assistance.

Emma Norton, legal officer at Liberty, said: "Policing demonstrations is no easy task but the police must distinguish between the law-abiding majority and the handful intent on violence. Our three young clients came away from November's march distressed, and, in two cases, with broken bones.

"The tactic of 'kettling' large groups so that peaceful protesters and passers-by are trapped for hours alongside more troublesome elements exacerbates tensions and creates a risk to public safety."

Scotland Yard has justified "kettling", saying it was crucial to contain people and the threat of disorder while minimising the use of force. Last week the Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said officers had to deal with "unrestrained violence" at the protests. Discussing his officers' actions, he said "things happen in violent disorders" and he regretted any injuries caused. He said any complaints about police conduct would be investigated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/26...nt-protest