Guest post by A. Nonymous The use of balaclavas and scarves has been branded in the mainstream press as anything from a signal of thuggish criminality, to a pathetic aspirational-revolutionary fashion statement. This kind of ‘analysis’ exposes the distance between so-called journalists and demonstrators. They really have no idea about the social movement taking place before their eyes. Concealments such as balaclavas, scarves, and notably ‘V for Vendetta’ masks, are being used as political constructions – wearing them at demonstrations indicates a concerted meaning, not simply a by-product of criminality. We are intentionally striving to remain anonymous, and we have...
Showing posts with label protests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label protests. Show all posts
Monday, 4 April 2011
Third Day of Afghan Protests Begin
VOA News April 03, 2011
Officials in southern Afghanistan say two people died and at least 18 others were wounded during a third day of protests against the burning of a Koran by a radical U.S. pastor.
Authorities say the latest casualties occurred in Kandahar Sunday when hundreds of people took to the streets there and in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Most of those injured were wounded when a gas canister caught fire and exploded.
At least 10 people were killed and 83 wounded Saturday in Kandahar after protesters set cars and buildings on fire.
On Friday, a group of people stormed the United Nations complex in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing seven foreign workers.
The protests follow the March 20 burning of a Koran by the head of a small fundamentalist church in the U.S. state of Florida.
The pastor, Terry Jones, made international headlines last year when he announced he intended to burn the Muslim holy book on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. He later canceled those plans after many, including top U.S. officials, urged him against it.
The Koran burning initially received little press coverage in Afghanistan. But after Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the act and religious leaders called for justice in their Friday sermons, thousands took to the streets across Afghanistan in protest.
Jones has denied any responsibility for the violence.
U.S. President Barack Obama has condemned the Koran burning, saying the desecration of any holy book, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry. But he also said that to attack and kill innocent people in response is "outrageous, and an affront to human decency and dignity."
The U.N. special representative in Kabul, Staffan de Mistura, said Saturday a group of insurgents had infiltrated Friday's protest and launched the deadly attack.
Protests could hit Prince of Wales’s visit to Morocco
By Gordon Rayner
Yesterday 4,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Casablanca demanding reforms including the repeal from the constitution of Article 19, which makes King Mohammed VI the highest religious authority in Morocco.
The Prince and the Duchess will arrive in Rabat today and will meet members of the Moroccan royal family, including the king, during their three-day visit. Clarence House said security arrangements would be monitored “closely” as protests continue to grip the region.
Demonstrators in Casablanca chanted “No to corruption”, “End social injustice”, and “The people want an end to authoritarianism” as they marched through the streets yesterday. Dozens were injured during a march in the northern city on March 13 after riot police tried to break up demonstrations with truncheons.
Afghanistan: Deadly Protests Continue as UN Mourns Slain Staff
Kabul, Afghanistan - Yesterday, a mob enraged by the burning of a Koran by a Florida preacher attacked the United Nations compound in Afghanistan’s northern city Mazar-i-Sharif, killing seven UN employees (revised down from eight) and wounding an unknown number of others in the deadliest ever attack against UN personnel in Afghanistan.
Some updates on that story:
- Details of the UN dead are emerging.
UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the dead included four Nepalese. Sweden’s foreign minister said 33-year-old national Joakim Dungel was killed, while Norway’s army said one of its officers, 53-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Siri Skare, was among the dead.
Romanian official sources told news agency Agerpres that a Romanian man working for the UN was also among those killed.
- UN flags are now flying at half-mast in honor of those killed in Mazar and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said of the dead, “These brave men and women were working in the best tradition of the United Nations and gave their lives in the service of humanity.”
- Chillingly, Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the UN mission in Afghanistan, said attackers shot their way into the compound and stalked the staff members trapped inside before killing them. “Our colleagues were hunted down in there,” he told the Globe and Mail. Staffan de Mistura, the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan is in Mazar now dealing with the aftermath.
- The Guardian has published a set of photos of the deadly riot.
- All reports and videos from yesterday’s attack indicate that the Nepali guards at the UN compound fought to the death against an overwhelming number of demonstrators.
- At least ten people were killed in violent demonstrations today in the southern city of Kandahar. AFP reports that the demonstrators burned down a girls’ school and were repelled by police bullets when they tried to attack the UN compound in the city:
Police had fired into the air to try to deter thousands of protesters heading towards the buildings, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Smoke was rising from different parts of the city as protesters burned cars and tyres.
The provincial authorities said the protesters had damaged government and private buildings and torched vehicles.
Daud Farhad, a senior doctor in the city’s main hospital, told AFP the death toll had risen to 10, with 83 injured.
- Kandahar-based researcher @FelixKuehn tweets that a large market was also set ablaze during the protest and Pajhwok Afghan News reports (from behind its paywall) that four local journalists reporting from the scene were “beaten with sticks and fists” by demonstrators.
- Kabul was calm today and most foreign aid workers are confined to their compounds until further notice.
Afghanistan: Deadly Protests Continue as UN Mourns Slain Staff
Kabul, Afghanistan - Yesterday, a mob enraged by the burning of a Koran by a Florida preacher attacked the United Nations compound in Afghanistan’s northern city Mazar-i-Sharif, killing seven UN employees (revised down from eight) and wounding an unknown number of others in the deadliest ever attack against UN personnel in Afghanistan.
Some updates on that story:
- Details of the UN dead are emerging.
UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the dead included four Nepalese. Sweden’s foreign minister said 33-year-old national Joakim Dungel was killed, while Norway’s army said one of its officers, 53-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Siri Skare, was among the dead.
Romanian official sources told news agency Agerpres that a Romanian man working for the UN was also among those killed.
- UN flags are now flying at half-mast in honor of those killed in Mazar and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said of the dead, “These brave men and women were working in the best tradition of the United Nations and gave their lives in the service of humanity.”
- Chillingly, Kieran Dwyer, a spokesman for the UN mission in Afghanistan, said attackers shot their way into the compound and stalked the staff members trapped inside before killing them. “Our colleagues were hunted down in there,” he told the Globe and Mail. Staffan de Mistura, the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan is in Mazar now dealing with the aftermath.
- The Guardian has published a set of photos of the deadly riot.
- All reports and videos from yesterday’s attack indicate that the Nepali guards at the UN compound fought to the death against an overwhelming number of demonstrators.
- At least ten people were killed in violent demonstrations today in the southern city of Kandahar. AFP reports that the demonstrators burned down a girls’ school and were repelled by police bullets when they tried to attack the UN compound in the city:
Police had fired into the air to try to deter thousands of protesters heading towards the buildings, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Smoke was rising from different parts of the city as protesters burned cars and tyres.
The provincial authorities said the protesters had damaged government and private buildings and torched vehicles.
Daud Farhad, a senior doctor in the city’s main hospital, told AFP the death toll had risen to 10, with 83 injured.
- Kandahar-based researcher @FelixKuehn tweets that a large market was also set ablaze during the protest and Pajhwok Afghan News reports (from behind its paywall) that four local journalists reporting from the scene were “beaten with sticks and fists” by demonstrators.
- Kabul was calm today and most foreign aid workers are confined to their compounds until further notice.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
Why you should cover your face at protests – by Anonymous
The use of balaclavas and scarves has been branded in the mainstream press as anything from a signal of thuggish criminality, to a pathetic aspirational-revolutionary fashion statement. This kind of ‘analysis’ exposes the distance between so-called journalists and demonstrators. They really have no idea about the social movement taking place before their eyes.
Concealments such as balaclavas, scarves, and notably ‘V for Vendetta’ masks, are being used as political constructions – wearing them at demonstrations indicates a concerted meaning, not simply a by-product of criminality. We are intentionally striving to remain anonymous, and we have very good reasons why.
‘Journalists’ such as Janice Turner of The Times spout the typically arrogant and myopic view of face covering.
Turner confidently declares that:
“… the increased use of masks by (UK) Uncut members is symptomatic of its drift from the mainstream. Covering the face manifests your social separation, your rejection of the rule of law for your own value system (…) A mask makes you an outlaw, bandit, fugitive, a rebel waging war against the State.”
(‘We must look each other in the eyes as equals’ – Janice Turner, The Times, p.27: Saturday 2nd April, 2011)
Right on, Janice – one mustn’t possibly drift from the mainstream! That would be ‘symptomatic’ of some strain of politically progressive disease, threatening your poor psychological immune system. The disenchanted mainstream, characterised by acquiescence, apathy, arrogance and ignorance is doing such a great job right now – well, at funding perpetual war, poverty, and destruction worldwide.
Although I contest the bias of Turner’s mask decoding, many of the mask wearers are indeed ‘rebel(s) waging war against the State’, and do indeed have their ‘own value system(s)’. And too right. Is this not something to be congratulated, in a ‘democracy’? If more people in the world took a similar interest in politics and values, the world would be a more beautiful and progressive place to live in.
Rather than masks being purely an indicator of identity or criminality, as writers such as Turner suggest, it is in fact an entirely practical decision, as well as a pre-meditated political statement, to wear one. Not an accident of thuggery.
For practical reasons, I advocate that all protestors/demonstrators conceal their faces and wear fairly unidentifiable clothing. This is a response to the encroaching police state that we find ourselves in. The highly controversial (yet lacking adequate public discussion) ‘FIT team’ (Forward Intelligence Team) is watching you unnervingly closely when you protest. Even if you manage to evade their shadowy surveillance, approximately 300 CCTV cameras will capture you on any given day.
Here are some excerpts from ‘Fitwatch’ (fitwatch.org.uk) describing the roles of FIT teams.
• ‘Spotting’ or identifying people they know from previous events. These people are sometimes then targeted for increased police surveillance, a stop and search or are ‘accompanied’
• Gaining intelligence on people they decide they have an interest in. FIT officers have testified in court they gain intelligence on people who have committed no offences and have done nothing wrong. They will focus on people who may frequently attend political protest, or who associate with someone already ‘known’. (…)
• Directing photographers or evidence gatherers to take photographs and footage of individuals or groups. (…) they have been known to follow a group of people for half an hour or more to obtain front, back, side and close up shots of each subject. They do NOT need to have suspicion that any offence has occurred, or will occur.
• Obtaining personal details of people they are interested in. This is frequently done by carrying out a stop and search to obtain people’s details, but other methods have also been used. They frequently misuse S60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which gives them a blanket power to stop and search everyone, without need for suspicion.
• Writing intelligence reports including descriptions, names and any other intelligence obtained for inclusion onto a police database. In London these are entered onto the CRIMINT (criminal intelligence) database
• ‘Accompanying’ activists they are interested in. This is supposedly carried out to prevent crimes taking place, although it often resembles harassment. They have been known to ‘accompany’ protesters for many hours, and this has included following them to their places of work, their homes, into pubs and shops, on trains and buses, even tailing their cars as they drive home.
• Gaining pre-event intelligence. This usually involves surveillance of meetings, and the identification of individuals thought to be organisers
.
(FIT – The Role, http://www.fitwatch.org.uk/forward-intelligence-teams/fit-the-role/, accessed 2ndApril 2011. Omissions and emphases added).
I can testify that the FIT teams do indeed fulfil this role as Big Brother’s slavishly mobile employees. I have been at gatherings when a van full of ‘FIT’ (clearly working on pre-event intelligence) has sidled up, silently captured all of ‘our’ faces (as if public groups are that easily discernable), and then crept off again. These kinds of gatherings are political, often hobbyist as much as activist. There is no suggestion of criminality or mal intent attached, and therefore they can have no intelligence suggesting anything of the like – these are just free political assemblies which, er, are supposed to be a pillar of any democracy. But it seems in modern Britain, political assembly is a dangerous act to be documented, harassed, and infiltrated.
Unfortunately, FIT’s photos and videos are not destined for the dustbin. They go onto databases and spotter cards, so that perfectly innocent people – or ‘dissenters’ – like you and I, can be ‘kept an eye on’: i.e., spied on, harassed, and targeted next time. FIT teams cast a worrying shadow over habeas corpus, treating the political public as guilty until proven innocent and with a total lack of respect, in the hope of catching a tiny minority of protesters who commit violent acts. My experience from protests is that whilst acts of political destruction are often well organised, violence, a totally different ball game, is primarily by the Police, and secondarily by drunk, rogue, or occasionally provoked/kettled protesters. Not something particularly preventable or curable with FIT teams, and certainly not warranting such a sacrifice of our civil liberties.
‘Nothing to hide, nothing to fear’, is the shrill retort of the naïve. This statement overlooks philosophies of privacy, anonymity, and liberty. In the same way that people wearing Burkas are wearing a construction of meaning, many people wearing balaclavas also a wearing a construction of meaning very important to them, and there is no reason that a religious philosophy should be regarded higher than a political philosophy in the system of law. But nevertheless, let’s address the terms. I am not ashamed to say today, that yes, I am ‘hiding’ something, but that is not a crime (unless Theresa May has her way). I hide my face from CCTV cameras and FIT teams because I do not agree with the unlawful, persecutory way that they will use my identity, and I refuse to enable it. The Love Police is all about lowering fear and raising love – I do not wish to increase fear, but the reality of our situation is that we are being targeted. As The Love Police walked away from 10 Downing Street on March 26th 2011, people in and around the group were ambushed by a van-full of police officers: one thrown to the floor, many with balaclavas forcibly ripped off, many subjected to a search. Those who are really in fear are the employees of the State. They see that elements are rebelling, and they are scared. The State is not built by us, it is built over us, and our right to make it crumble when it becomes diseased is being, and will be, vehemently opposed by its system justifying employees.
The Forward Intelligence Team is a particularly grotesque tentacle of the State, mutating the colourful environment of protest and demonstration into an intimidating, intelligence gathering operation that treats democratic processes with utmost suspicion. So I advise you all to cover your faces, unless you feel it is acceptable to risk your innocent and unknowing mug-shot being kept on a police database, and potentially being targeted in the future. If you disagree with this level of surveillance, take the simple step of concealing your face and disable their tactic. If Theresa May is successful and the police are granted increased rights to use force to remove our concealment, then we shall outwit them. If it means I have to demonstrate in a full morph suit that would require me to be totally stripped in order to identify me, I’ll do it, and I’ll have a really great time.
Why you should cover your face at protests – by Anonymous
The use of balaclavas and scarves has been branded in the mainstream press as anything from a signal of thuggish criminality, to a pathetic aspirational-revolutionary fashion statement. This kind of ‘analysis’ exposes the distance between so-called journalists and demonstrators. They really have no idea about the social movement taking place before their eyes.
Concealments such as balaclavas, scarves, and notably ‘V for Vendetta’ masks, are being used as political constructions – wearing them at demonstrations indicates a concerted meaning, not simply a by-product of criminality. We are intentionally striving to remain anonymous, and we have very good reasons why.
‘Journalists’ such as Janice Turner of The Times spout the typically arrogant and myopic view of face covering.
Turner confidently declares that:
“… the increased use of masks by (UK) Uncut members is symptomatic of its drift from the mainstream. Covering the face manifests your social separation, your rejection of the rule of law for your own value system (…) A mask makes you an outlaw, bandit, fugitive, a rebel waging war against the State.”
(‘We must look each other in the eyes as equals’ – Janice Turner, The Times, p.27: Saturday 2nd April, 2011)
Right on, Janice – one mustn’t possibly drift from the mainstream! That would be ‘symptomatic’ of some strain of politically progressive disease, threatening your poor psychological immune system. The disenchanted mainstream, characterised by acquiescence, apathy, arrogance and ignorance is doing such a great job right now – well, at funding perpetual war, poverty, and destruction worldwide.
Although I contest the bias of Turner’s mask decoding, many of the mask wearers are indeed ‘rebel(s) waging war against the State’, and do indeed have their ‘own value system(s)’. And too right. Is this not something to be congratulated, in a ‘democracy’? If more people in the world took a similar interest in politics and values, the world would be a more beautiful and progressive place to live in.
Rather than masks being purely an indicator of identity or criminality, as writers such as Turner suggest, it is in fact an entirely practical decision, as well as a pre-meditated political statement, to wear one. Not an accident of thuggery.
For practical reasons, I advocate that all protestors/demonstrators conceal their faces and wear fairly unidentifiable clothing. This is a response to the encroaching police state that we find ourselves in. The highly controversial (yet lacking adequate public discussion) ‘FIT team’ (Forward Intelligence Team) is watching you unnervingly closely when you protest. Even if you manage to evade their shadowy surveillance, approximately 300 CCTV cameras will capture you on any given day.
Here are some excerpts from ‘Fitwatch’ (fitwatch.org.uk) describing the roles of FIT teams.
• ‘Spotting’ or identifying people they know from previous events. These people are sometimes then targeted for increased police surveillance, a stop and search or are ‘accompanied’
• Gaining intelligence on people they decide they have an interest in. FIT officers have testified in court they gain intelligence on people who have committed no offences and have done nothing wrong. They will focus on people who may frequently attend political protest, or who associate with someone already ‘known’. (…)
• Directing photographers or evidence gatherers to take photographs and footage of individuals or groups. (…) they have been known to follow a group of people for half an hour or more to obtain front, back, side and close up shots of each subject. They do NOT need to have suspicion that any offence has occurred, or will occur.
• Obtaining personal details of people they are interested in. This is frequently done by carrying out a stop and search to obtain people’s details, but other methods have also been used. They frequently misuse S60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which gives them a blanket power to stop and search everyone, without need for suspicion.
• Writing intelligence reports including descriptions, names and any other intelligence obtained for inclusion onto a police database. In London these are entered onto the CRIMINT (criminal intelligence) database
• ‘Accompanying’ activists they are interested in. This is supposedly carried out to prevent crimes taking place, although it often resembles harassment. They have been known to ‘accompany’ protesters for many hours, and this has included following them to their places of work, their homes, into pubs and shops, on trains and buses, even tailing their cars as they drive home.
• Gaining pre-event intelligence. This usually involves surveillance of meetings, and the identification of individuals thought to be organisers
.
(FIT – The Role, http://www.fitwatch.org.uk/forward-intelligence-teams/fit-the-role/, accessed 2ndApril 2011. Omissions and emphases added).
I can testify that the FIT teams do indeed fulfil this role as Big Brother’s slavishly mobile employees. I have been at gatherings when a van full of ‘FIT’ (clearly working on pre-event intelligence) has sidled up, silently captured all of ‘our’ faces (as if public groups are that easily discernable), and then crept off again. These kinds of gatherings are political, often hobbyist as much as activist. There is no suggestion of criminality or mal intent attached, and therefore they can have no intelligence suggesting anything of the like – these are just free political assemblies which, er, are supposed to be a pillar of any democracy. But it seems in modern Britain, political assembly is a dangerous act to be documented, harassed, and infiltrated.
Unfortunately, FIT’s photos and videos are not destined for the dustbin. They go onto databases and spotter cards, so that perfectly innocent people – or ‘dissenters’ – like you and I, can be ‘kept an eye on’: i.e., spied on, harassed, and targeted next time. FIT teams cast a worrying shadow over habeas corpus, treating the political public as guilty until proven innocent and with a total lack of respect, in the hope of catching a tiny minority of protesters who commit violent acts. My experience from protests is that whilst acts of political destruction are often well organised, violence, a totally different ball game, is primarily by the Police, and secondarily by drunk, rogue, or occasionally provoked/kettled protesters. Not something particularly preventable or curable with FIT teams, and certainly not warranting such a sacrifice of our civil liberties.
‘Nothing to hide, nothing to fear’, is the shrill retort of the naïve. This statement overlooks philosophies of privacy, anonymity, and liberty. In the same way that people wearing Burkas are wearing a construction of meaning, many people wearing balaclavas also a wearing a construction of meaning very important to them, and there is no reason that a religious philosophy should be regarded higher than a political philosophy in the system of law. But nevertheless, let’s address the terms. I am not ashamed to say today, that yes, I am ‘hiding’ something, but that is not a crime (unless Theresa May has her way). I hide my face from CCTV cameras and FIT teams because I do not agree with the unlawful, persecutory way that they will use my identity, and I refuse to enable it. The Love Police is all about lowering fear and raising love – I do not wish to increase fear, but the reality of our situation is that we are being targeted. As The Love Police walked away from 10 Downing Street on March 26th 2011, people in and around the group were ambushed by a van-full of police officers: one thrown to the floor, many with balaclavas forcibly ripped off, many subjected to a search. Those who are really in fear are the employees of the State. They see that elements are rebelling, and they are scared. The State is not built by us, it is built over us, and our right to make it crumble when it becomes diseased is being, and will be, vehemently opposed by its system justifying employees.
The Forward Intelligence Team is a particularly grotesque tentacle of the State, mutating the colourful environment of protest and demonstration into an intimidating, intelligence gathering operation that treats democratic processes with utmost suspicion. So I advise you all to cover your faces, unless you feel it is acceptable to risk your innocent and unknowing mug-shot being kept on a police database, and potentially being targeted in the future. If you disagree with this level of surveillance, take the simple step of concealing your face and disable their tactic. If Theresa May is successful and the police are granted increased rights to use force to remove our concealment, then we shall outwit them. If it means I have to demonstrate in a full morph suit that would require me to be totally stripped in order to identify me, I’ll do it, and I’ll have a really great time.
Why you should cover your face at protests – by Anonymous
The use of balaclavas and scarves has been branded in the mainstream press as anything from a signal of thuggish criminality, to a pathetic aspirational-revolutionary fashion statement. This kind of ‘analysis’ exposes the distance between so-called journalists and demonstrators. They really have no idea about the social movement taking place before their eyes.
Concealments such as balaclavas, scarves, and notably ‘V for Vendetta’ masks, are being used as political constructions – wearing them at demonstrations indicates a concerted meaning, not simply a by-product of criminality. We are intentionally striving to remain anonymous, and we have very good reasons why.
‘Journalists’ such as Janice Turner of The Times spout the typically arrogant and myopic view of face covering.
Turner confidently declares that:
“… the increased use of masks by (UK) Uncut members is symptomatic of its drift from the mainstream. Covering the face manifests your social separation, your rejection of the rule of law for your own value system (…) A mask makes you an outlaw, bandit, fugitive, a rebel waging war against the State.”
(‘We must look each other in the eyes as equals’ – Janice Turner, The Times, p.27: Saturday 2nd April, 2011)
Right on, Janice – one mustn’t possibly drift from the mainstream! That would be ‘symptomatic’ of some strain of politically progressive disease, threatening your poor psychological immune system. The disenchanted mainstream, characterised by acquiescence, apathy, arrogance and ignorance is doing such a great job right now – well, at funding perpetual war, poverty, and destruction worldwide.
Although I contest the bias of Turner’s mask decoding, many of the mask wearers are indeed ‘rebel(s) waging war against the State’, and do indeed have their ‘own value system(s)’. And too right. Is this not something to be congratulated, in a ‘democracy’? If more people in the world took a similar interest in politics and values, the world would be a more beautiful and progressive place to live in.
Rather than masks being purely an indicator of identity or criminality, as writers such as Turner suggest, it is in fact an entirely practical decision, as well as a pre-meditated political statement, to wear one. Not an accident of thuggery.
For practical reasons, I advocate that all protestors/demonstrators conceal their faces and wear fairly unidentifiable clothing. This is a response to the encroaching police state that we find ourselves in. The highly controversial (yet lacking adequate public discussion) ‘FIT team’ (Forward Intelligence Team) is watching you unnervingly closely when you protest. Even if you manage to evade their shadowy surveillance, approximately 300 CCTV cameras will capture you on any given day.
Here are some excerpts from ‘Fitwatch’ (fitwatch.org.uk) describing the roles of FIT teams.
• ‘Spotting’ or identifying people they know from previous events. These people are sometimes then targeted for increased police surveillance, a stop and search or are ‘accompanied’
• Gaining intelligence on people they decide they have an interest in. FIT officers have testified in court they gain intelligence on people who have committed no offences and have done nothing wrong. They will focus on people who may frequently attend political protest, or who associate with someone already ‘known’. (…)
• Directing photographers or evidence gatherers to take photographs and footage of individuals or groups. (…) they have been known to follow a group of people for half an hour or more to obtain front, back, side and close up shots of each subject. They do NOT need to have suspicion that any offence has occurred, or will occur.
• Obtaining personal details of people they are interested in. This is frequently done by carrying out a stop and search to obtain people’s details, but other methods have also been used. They frequently misuse S60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which gives them a blanket power to stop and search everyone, without need for suspicion.
• Writing intelligence reports including descriptions, names and any other intelligence obtained for inclusion onto a police database. In London these are entered onto the CRIMINT (criminal intelligence) database
• ‘Accompanying’ activists they are interested in. This is supposedly carried out to prevent crimes taking place, although it often resembles harassment. They have been known to ‘accompany’ protesters for many hours, and this has included following them to their places of work, their homes, into pubs and shops, on trains and buses, even tailing their cars as they drive home.
• Gaining pre-event intelligence. This usually involves surveillance of meetings, and the identification of individuals thought to be organisers
.
(FIT – The Role, http://www.fitwatch.org.uk/forward-intelligence-teams/fit-the-role/, accessed 2ndApril 2011. Omissions and emphases added).
I can testify that the FIT teams do indeed fulfil this role as Big Brother’s slavishly mobile employees. I have been at gatherings when a van full of ‘FIT’ (clearly working on pre-event intelligence) has sidled up, silently captured all of ‘our’ faces (as if public groups are that easily discernable), and then crept off again. These kinds of gatherings are political, often hobbyist as much as activist. There is no suggestion of criminality or mal intent attached, and therefore they can have no intelligence suggesting anything of the like – these are just free political assemblies which, er, are supposed to be a pillar of any democracy. But it seems in modern Britain, political assembly is a dangerous act to be documented, harassed, and infiltrated.
Unfortunately, FIT’s photos and videos are not destined for the dustbin. They go onto databases and spotter cards, so that perfectly innocent people – or ‘dissenters’ – like you and I, can be ‘kept an eye on’: i.e., spied on, harassed, and targeted next time. FIT teams cast a worrying shadow over habeas corpus, treating the political public as guilty until proven innocent and with a total lack of respect, in the hope of catching a tiny minority of protesters who commit violent acts. My experience from protests is that whilst acts of political destruction are often well organised, violence, a totally different ball game, is primarily by the Police, and secondarily by drunk, rogue, or occasionally provoked/kettled protesters. Not something particularly preventable or curable with FIT teams, and certainly not warranting such a sacrifice of our civil liberties.
‘Nothing to hide, nothing to fear’, is the shrill retort of the naïve. This statement overlooks philosophies of privacy, anonymity, and liberty. In the same way that people wearing Burkas are wearing a construction of meaning, many people wearing balaclavas also a wearing a construction of meaning very important to them, and there is no reason that a religious philosophy should be regarded higher than a political philosophy in the system of law. But nevertheless, let’s address the terms. I am not ashamed to say today, that yes, I am ‘hiding’ something, but that is not a crime (unless Theresa May has her way). I hide my face from CCTV cameras and FIT teams because I do not agree with the unlawful, persecutory way that they will use my identity, and I refuse to enable it. The Love Police is all about lowering fear and raising love – I do not wish to increase fear, but the reality of our situation is that we are being targeted. As The Love Police walked away from 10 Downing Street on March 26th 2011, people in and around the group were ambushed by a van-full of police officers: one thrown to the floor, many with balaclavas forcibly ripped off, many subjected to a search. Those who are really in fear are the employees of the State. They see that elements are rebelling, and they are scared. The State is not built by us, it is built over us, and our right to make it crumble when it becomes diseased is being, and will be, vehemently opposed by its system justifying employees.
The Forward Intelligence Team is a particularly grotesque tentacle of the State, mutating the colourful environment of protest and demonstration into an intimidating, intelligence gathering operation that treats democratic processes with utmost suspicion. So I advise you all to cover your faces, unless you feel it is acceptable to risk your innocent and unknowing mug-shot being kept on a police database, and potentially being targeted in the future. If you disagree with this level of surveillance, take the simple step of concealing your face and disable their tactic. If Theresa May is successful and the police are granted increased rights to use force to remove our concealment, then we shall outwit them. If it means I have to demonstrate in a full morph suit that would require me to be totally stripped in order to identify me, I’ll do it, and I’ll have a really great time.
Monday, 21 March 2011
Yemeni President Fires Cabinet as Protests Escalate
VOA News March 20, 2011
Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh has fired his entire Cabinet amid escalating protests demanding his ouster.
The announcement came after leaders of the president's own tribe joined calls for his resignation, and tens of thousands of Yemenis gathered for funerals of anti-government protesters shot dead by Saleh loyalists on Friday.
The mourners Sunday joined a mass funeral procession in the Yemeni capital for some of the 52 people killed when pro-Saleh gunmen near Sana'a University two days earlier. Yemen's government withdrew armed police from areas near the procession and replaced them with a largely unarmed force in an apparent bid to ease tensions.
The head of Saleh's Hashed tribe, Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, issued a joint statement with prominent clerics late Saturday, holding the Yemeni president responsible for the killings of the protesters. They demanded that he resign the post he has held for 32 years.
The tribal leader and the clerics praised the youths and other opposition activists who have been calling for Saleh's ouster during more than a month of daily protests in Sana'a and other cities. The statement also urged Yemeni troops to disobey orders to attack the demonstrators.
Saleh declared a nationwide state of emergency Friday, shortly after the deadly crackdown on protesters in Sana'a. The killings drew condemnation from the United States and the United Nations.
The violence also has prompted more government officials to quit. Yemen's Human Rights Minister Huda al-Ban and Yemeni Ambassador to the United Nations Abdullah Alsaidi resigned Sunday in protest at Friday's shootings. Several other ministers and ruling party lawmakers also have quit in recent days.
Saleh has offered to hold a dialogue with the opposition on a new constitution and promised to step down at the end of his term in 2013. Opposition groups and activists have rejected those gestures.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Monday, 14 March 2011
Yemen Protests Surge to New Record Turnout
100,000 Reported at Sanaa University Alone.
Another day-of-rage in Yemen has given way to another record turnout amongst protesters nationwide, as around 100,000 were reported at Sanaa University, the site of daily protests and daily violent crackdowns in the capital city.
But the protests of course were not confined to Sanaa, and massive rallies in cities like Taiz, Aden, and indeed elsewhere across the nation were reported as well. Protests have been a regular part of daily life across the city for over a month now, as Yemenis demand the ouster of long-time dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Saleh has promised a series of reforms aimed at quieting the protests, including a pledge not to run for reelection and, yesterday, a promise of a new constitution and referendum by the end of the year.
The opposition, however, insists that it is far too late for such offers, and particularly in the wake of a violent crackdown that they cannot possibly accept anything short of Saleh’s complete ouster. Though he continues to insist that won’t happen, the pressure on the US-backed dictator is continuing to grow.
Related posts:Did you like this information? Then please consider making a donation or subscribing to our Newsletter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)