A police state?
Posted by: mimanifesto on: November 2, 2011
- In: Equality | Leadership | Racism
- Comment!
This was the scene outside my office on Monday of this week. Now just to explain a little, my window looks out onto St Andrew’s Street and directly opposite is the Glasgow JP court. You can see a grey car in the picture. It was parked in the cycle lane over double yellow lines. In fact, it was blocking the cycle lane. The picture below perhaps shows this more clearly..
It was impossible for cyclists to use this cycleway without going onto the pavement or bumping over the curb into the street. You can also see a small group of people (five of them, in fact) behind the car by the entrance to the court. They are members of the Glasgow Defence Campaign, a group which demonstrates against the public sector cuts implemented by our current government. You can read about why they were there at the court here.
Two uniformed police officers were in this car with orders to monitor the activities of this group, and particularly Dominic O’Hara and Joey Simons who had been arrested for alleged incidents whilst on peaceful demonstrations earlier this year. The officers were present for several hours. One can only imagine how much this cost and how many serious crimes could perhaps have been prevented during this time and for this wasted money. Do Strathclyde Police really expect us to believe that this was in the public interest ?
Just like the student demonstrations at the Hetherington Club where the use of Police manpower and resources (a helicopter for hours) was grossly excessive. Do Strathclyde police really expect us to believe that this was anything other than political policing and repressive intimidation of those prepared to stand up and say no to all the injustice and unfairness going on all around us? The same stuff which most of us just shrug our shoulders and accept with nothing more than a wee bit of grumbling into our sauvignon blanc? the actions of these folks, and the occupy Glasgow people, and the STUC demonstrations, and the students at the Hetherington make me feel ashamed that I don’t do more. Ok, I made Dominic and his friends some coffee to warm them up on Monday, but that’s nothing compared to what they, and many others do to protest against injustice and inequality in our society. And he’s a reasonable bloke, despite provocation and harassment from Strathclyde Police, as you can see for yourselves in this video…
I’ve been increasingly worried by the behaviour of Strathclyde police over this past year or so. Watching them behave with sometimes shocking indifference to the law on an almost daily basis in and around the city centre and Salt market has left a very bad taste in my mouth. Its a case of do as I say, not as I do much of the time. Corruption is alleged as police officers sell information to the newspapers and perjure themselves in court. Dominic O’Hara, Joey Simons, Tommy Sheridan and no doubt many others are victims of this. Even respected journalist John Pilger has accused Strathclyde police of actions which are, in his words, outrageous, in the way in which they police peaceful demonstrations. I was a victim of this during the anti-war demonstration in Glasgow a few years ago when with many others, I was held in a side street for several hours without explanation…
So if you can, please support peaceful demonstration to protect democracy and fairness in our society. Its not enough any more to grumble from the comfort of our nice warm houses. The days of armchair activism are well and truly over, I think…we need to think about how we can follow the lead of those named in this post and whatever our political persuasions, actively demonstrate for fairness, justice and equality in society.
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