G20 demonstrations: a first-hand account of peaceful protest and unprovoked police violence.
At exactly 12.30pm on 1st April, environmental protestors swooped on Bishopsgate, the main road running through the heart of London’s financial district, to set up a 24-hour climate camp on the eve of the G20 summit.
Within the space of a few surreal minutes, a quarter-mile length of this busy London road had been transformed into something between a tented town and a carnival. It started with a gradual filtering of bodies slowly filling the traffic-free street, then suddenly tents popped up like mushrooms and bunting was strung between lampposts. A kitchen appeared out of nowhere, cycle-powered sound systems started up, and the police – after initially attempting to drag away the first tents that appeared – decided it was best to let it happen.
The action was the brainchild of Climate Camp, who pulled off similarly spectacular feats at Kingsnorth power station in 2008 and Heathrow in 2007. Bishopsgate was chosen because it’s the location of the European Climate Exchange, the largest carbon trading centre in the world (for info about why carbon trading’s bad, see this page at climatecamp.org.uk).
Elsewhere in the City, protests turned rough – a branch of RBS was smashed up, and police ‘kettled’ thousands of demonstrators at Bank – but the camp itself was nothing but peaceful. Office workers mingled with the crowd, there was hot food served, open workshops and discussions, and the police were relaxed and non-confrontational, strolling about, chatting with protesters and being handed bunches of daffodils that matched their fluorescent jackets.
At about 6.45pm – when most of the businessmen and city workers mingling with the crowd had gone home – this changed very abruptly.
Without asking anyone to disperse, or giving any kind of warning whatsoever, police in full riot gear charged the southern boundary of the camp. The attack was unprovoked and unexpected. They trampled tents and used shields and batons to beat back protesters who, until then, had been sitting in small groups eating, talking and listening to music.
People surged forward to stop the police cutting a swathe through the camp, holding their hands up and chanting ‘This is not a riot.’ I found myself in the front line, where I got booted in the leg by a cop whose features, behind the tinted visor of his helmet, were contorted with rage. He screamed ‘Get back, you fuck!’ in my face. I shouted at him that I couldn’t move, I was sandwiched between the police and the crowd. In response to this he kicked me again – leaving a cut and bruise on my shin – and when I held out my palms to show I wasn’t trying to fight, he smacked me in the hand with his baton.
Other people were coming off worse. I saw people grabbed and hurled to the ground. Others were clubbed and punched. A girl was kicked between the legs. It was pretty sickening to witness unarmed young men and women beaten by bulky men with shields and protective clothing. Amazingly, no-one responded with violence (apart from a few plastic bottles being thrown, and even then the people throwing them were condemned by other protesters). People continued to hold their hands up and even attempted dialogue with the police: ‘Can’t you see we’re not fighting you?’ ‘Why are you doing this?’
By sheer force of numbers we held the police lines back. If they’d managed to break through and sweep into the camp itself, a lot more people would have been injured.
It was the second transformation of the day, and it was entirely deliberate. In the same length of time we’d transformed a busy City street into an environmental camp, the police transformed a carnival mood into an atmosphere of fear, suspicion and anger. Having failed to break us up by violence, they now opted to kettle us in for the next six hours. They blocked every exit to the camp, refused to allow access to food, water or toilet facilities, and regularly attempted minor advances which served no conceivable purpose other than to stir up the increasingly frustrated crowd. I eventually got out about midnight; the brave people who stayed on were violently dispersed a couple of hours later.
The rationale for this unnecessary assault can only have been to try to stir up a peaceful crowd into a violent mob. Despite the constant provocations, the protesters never obliged with anger (unless you count the damage to the riot vans the cops unwisely left unattended inside the camp before they attacked; these ended up with a little less air in their tyres than before). It’s to the Climate Camp’s great credit that people didn’t take the bait, and refused to give those thugs the riot they wanted.
Please, watch this video footage from indymedia.org.uk. It’s clear evidence of how the police attacked peaceful protesters without provocation or warning.
(For extra points, see if you can spot a familiar face or two in the crowd.)