Repression

In historian Timothy Garton Ash’s book The File, there’s an anecdote about a prominent East German activist finally figuring out who the very-well-informed spy was in her life (names had been blacked out in the files she could see). It was her husband.

He had romanced her in order to get a paid job feeding back information to the Stasi, the East German secret police.

I often used this as an example of just how corrupt East German society was. That sort of thing…

Currently before the house of lords, and expected to receive royal assent next spring, the anti-social behaviour, crime and policing bill will make behaviour perceived to, or potentially able to, ‘cause nuisance or annoyance’ a criminal offence.

The new law also grants local authorities, police and even private security firms the power to bar citizens from assembling in public places.

The bill claims to simplify the large number of ‘orders’ legislated into…

If you’ve been an activist in the UK for any length of time then it’s likely – whether you know it or not — that you’ve rubbed shoulders with one or more spies. In 15 years of activism, I can think of three definite cases of infiltration of the groups that I’ve been involved with.

There was ‘Rod’, the undercover police officer who infiltrated the WOMBLES (the ‘White Overall Movement Building Liberation Effective Struggles’, a UK anti-capitalist group who adopted some of the…

It was reported on 6 August, that 60 people being held in the United States military’s Guantánamo Bay detention centre were continuing a hunger strike against their continued imprisonment without trial.

The hunger strike has lasted six months and at one point involved over 100 of the 160 detainees. Many hunger strikers have suffered force-feeding, a practice  widely condemned as torture.

The remaining British resident, Shaker Aamer, who has been detained for 11 years, is among…

On 21 August, a military judge sentenced the 25-year-old US army private formerly known as Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison, with time served (almost three years) in pre-trial custody counted towards this.

The next day, Bradley Manning publicly asked to be referred to as Chelsea Manning from that point on, and asked people to use the feminine pronoun to refer to her (except in official post to the prison), saying: ‘I am a female’.

The judge in Manning’s trial counted…

British artist Peter Kennard responded to the G8 summit in the north of Ireland with a series of protest posters that he encouraged people to download and paste up wherever they saw fit – this poster was in Hackney. Some posters were stuck on the walls of

A group named Stop G8 occupied a former police station on Beak St in central London to be the convergence centre for their ‘Carnival Against Capitalism’. 

On 11 June, 100 police officers broke into the building, removing…

Five of the 182 cyclists arrested at last July’s Critical Mass bike ride in east London (PN 2549) were convicted at Westminster magistrates’ court on 14 March. Only nine out of the 182 had been prosecuted; charges were dropped against three and one was found not guilty by district judge Elizabeth Roscoe.

The five who were convicted were found guilty of disobeying a section 12 order (conditions on public processions) under the public order act (1986).

The…

PN carried a photograph of Ernest Rodker, pensioner and G20 protester, flat on his back in the road. (PN 2509)

Ernest had just been knocked to the ground for a second time by police violently clearing demonstrators from Bishopsgate, who were supporting the Climate Camp close by.

Earlier in the day, newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson had died after being pushed to the ground by a policeman (PN 2509, 2550).

The independent police complaints commission (IPCC) reported receiving…

On 8 March, a police and council swoop removed the peace camps in Parliament Square that have been a symbol of war resistance in central London since 2001, when a vigil was begun by the late Brian Haw.

The camps, which have long been seen as a form of resistance to British imperialism, were cleared just days before the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Westminster council claimed the tents had been left unoccupied for 48 hours, according to a…

On 12 March, demonstrators protested at Menwith Hill US spy base in Yorkshire in support of US military whistle-blower Bradley Manning, currently on trial, and against the treatment of Guantánamo Bay detainees, many of whom are hunger-striking against deteriorating prison conditions.

At Menwith Hill, they attached a banner saying ‘The Shame of Guantánamo Bay’ to the fence while one demonstrator, dressed in a hooded orange jumpsuit resembling those that…

The protestors that day suffered ‘kettling’ (mass detention), charges by police horses and baton attacks. Alfie required emergency brain surgery after being struck by a police baton.

Like many others, Zak and Alfie were arrested and charged with serious public order offences. Some cases have resulted in prison sentences, including one of 12 months for a student for merely waving a placard stick. However, where students pleaded not guilty and described police brutality on the day,…

Just 11 of the 182 cyclists arrested in London in July for taking part in a Critical Mass bike ride are facing trial (see PN 2549). The 11 are being tried in February under the Public Order Act (1986).

On 19 September, Italy's supreme criminal court, the 'court of cassation', upheld abduction and 'rendition to torture' convictions against 23 Americans, all but one CIA officers. The charges related to an Egyptian imam, Osama Mustapha Nasr, abducted from Italy to Egypt in 2003 and held for four years before being released. The court also ordered €1.5m in damages to be paid to Nasr and his wife. The Italian government may now seek extradition of the 23.

The US government is still allowed legally to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely, after a ruling by the US court of appeals on 2 October. A lower court order had earlier barred indefinite detention under the National Defense Authorization Act.

The court of appeals has allowed the US president to continue detaining indefinitely anyone 'who was a part of or substantially supported' al-Qa'eda, the Taliban or 'associated forces'.

On 21 September, the US justice department released the names of 55 men held at the Guantánamo detention centre on Cuba, who have been cleared for release.

On the list were British residents Shaker Aamer and Ahmed Belbacha. A previous request for this was rejected in 2009, so the disclosure, while not signalling any imminent releases, is being seen as a positive step.