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Galloway calls for inquiry into police action against anti-war protest
Protest against George Bush visit, June 08Respect MP and vice-president of the Stop the War Coalition George Galloway has written to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and London Mayor Boris Johnson calling for a swift inquiry into the policing of yesterday's Stop the War protest in Westminster."Police were out of control", says Galloway
"The policing of the event was way over the top," says Galloway. "The primary cause is the profoundly undemocratic decision to ban a peaceful protest from going down Whitehall - so that George W Bush would not be embarrassed: our rights are shredded to save the face of a foreign potentate.
"As I wrote to Sir Ian Blair, I'm not a habitual complainer against the police, but the behaviour of some of his officers on the day was such as I have not witnessed since the Miners' Strike of 1984. A minority of officers appeared to relish laying into an unarmed crowd of largely young anti-war protesters.
"The policeman's steel baton cracking against the heads of peaceful protesters and coming after Parliament voted to lock people up for 42 days without charge should be a further wake-up call. The attack on our civil liberties is not a subject for highbrow, lawyerly debate. It is a serious assault on our freedoms, something that will lead large numbers of people in the very near future to wonder how it happened. By then it will be too late. The time to raise the alarm is now.
George Galloway confronts police during George Bush visit, June 08"The anti-war movement and campaigners for civil liberties are demanding urgent answers from the police and authorities about yesterday's scandal."
Letters from George Galloway to Boris Johnson & Ian Blair
To Boris Johnson
15 June 2008
Dear Mayor Johnson,
I enclose a letter I have today sent to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, and ask you to require the Metropolitan Police Authority to conduct an investigation into the policing of the demonstration today. I know you were a supporter of President Bush and his war on Iraq. But I cannot believe that as Mayor of London - after a closely fought and emotionally charged contest - can be sanguine about the police strategy and tactics and the violence they meted out. To borrow a phrase I can imagine you using yourself it's just not British to deploy paramilitary riot police against such a small number of peace protesters in full view of the national and international media, and hundreds of tourists visiting central London.
It was Juvenal, I believe, who asked, "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes". The answer to that question is surely you as a directly elected politician and I ask you to take up your responsibility.
I look forward to hearing from you swiftly, there are, of course, other bodies which may have a locus on this matter - such as the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Yours sincerely,
George Galloway MP
Letter to Ian Blair
15 June 2008
Dear Sir Ian,
I write in connection with the police operation surrounding the President George W Bush to Downing Street today.
I am not a habitual complainer about the police, as a scan of the public record and my history of cooperation with Tower Hamlets police and the Muslim Support Unit will quickly show. But I must say I witnessed scenes today, some of them inches from my face, which were both deeply shocking and completely unnecessary.
I was asked by the chairman of the Stop the War Coalition as the only member of parliament present at the demonstration in Parliament Square to march to the police barricade in Whitehall symbolically to demonstrate the outrageousness of the government's decision to forbid marchers to enter Whitehall. As one of the leaders of the Stop the War Coalition I felt it was my duty to comply with his request, although it was Fathers Day, I had my children with me and had intended to leave Parliament Square shortly after my speech.
I made my way to the front of the putative march and purely by chance found myself in the hottest spot of the confrontation which followed. I was trapped there for the best part of an hour and a half, unable to move forward, back or sideways. Consquently, I was both closer to and for longer exposed to the events as they unfolded. A considerable line of uniformed officers were in full control of the situation for a substantial part of this time. Most of the officers were impassive throughout. Some did their best to defuse the situation, which was clearly the proper tactic in the circumstances. But a number of your officers behaved with a viciousness and lack of control such as I have not witnessed since the miners strike of 1984-85. Batons were drawn at least prematurely and were used with a level of aggression which frankly took my breath away. These were not hardened trouble-makers they were facing who'd come for a fight with the police. They were young, peaceful, allbeit frustrated and angry anti-war protesters. You will know that there has never been any trouble on the score of Stop the War marches that London has scene hitherto. One particular officer, I will not give his number at this stage as I intend to make a formal complaint about his conduct and I am releasing this letter to the press, was quite simply out of control. He assaulted a young woman; he deployed his metal baton in a frenzied way; he ripped placards from the hands of several demonstrators when I can assure you the demonstrators in question were not using these cardboard placards in any improper way. He was standing next to a sergeant, whose number I also have, who if he tesitfies truthfully will bear out what I am saying. A senior officer - I could see no identifying number, but I know he was senior because he was giving out orders - was actually taunting the demonstrators, including me in a display of political partiality such as I have never witnessed.
But the most serious mistake is one I believe you have a duty to investigate, and that was the tactical decision to deploy the black-boiler-suited riot squad - when there was clearly no riot. This decision, however, was one which appeared designed to start one. Given the small number of demonstrators involved - far less than the number of revellers on an ordinary Friday night in Romford - it was an unnecessary and provocative overreaction and served as nothing other than a provocation compounding the protesters' feelings about the denial of what they and I regard as their rights as citizens in a free country.
This squad behaved intolerably. It was as if they were facing a dangerous crowd of molotov cocktail throwing, pike wielding insurrectionists. It was a scene redolent of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and cannot possibly be justified by the scale of this incident. This squad proceeded to deal out a shocking level of violence against unarmed civilan protesters, overwhelmingly young and many of them female. I have no doubt the large number of press photographers present and taking pictures of the scenes will bear this out.
This was not the Metropolitan Police's finest hour, Commissioner. It was a sledgehammer to crack a nut and did harm to the reputation of your officers and their commanders, and I believe you have a duty to investigate it.
I look forward to a swift reply,
Yours sincerely,
George Galloway MP
Thanks to Paddy Garcia for use of the photos.
Update: The Stop the War Coalition has written to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to protest

about the actions of the police
Jacqui Smith, Secretary of State
Home Office, 3rd Floor, Peel Building
2 Marsham Street
London, SW1P 4DF

Cc: Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair

16 June

Dear Home Secretary

We are writing to protest in the strongest possible terms concerning the
conduct of the Metropolitan Police at yesterday's demonstration
organised by
the Stop the War Coalition, CND and the British Muslim Initiative.

In particular, we wish to raise two decisions with you. First, the decision to ban the march from proceeding

peacefully up Whitehall after rallying in Parliament Square. There can be no justification for this arbitrary
abridgement of our right to peacefully protest. As you may know, the Stop the
War Coalition has organised over twenty major demonstrations in the last seven
years, nearly all of them in London. There has been no disorder, let alone
violence, at any of them. The idea that we could have presented any physical
threat to the President of the United States is laughable.
This decision smacks of a growing authoritarian clamp-down on the right to demonstrate, bearing in mind that the

Metropolitan Police also tried to prohibit our march in Whitehall last October, and is indicative of your

government's increasingly cavalier (to put it gently) attitude towards civil liberties.
It further contradicts the Prime Minister's stated intention, on his accession to office last summer, to take a more

liberal approach to protest around Parliament and the seat of government.

Second, we ask you to address urgently the violent policing of the demonstration itself. This arises, of course,

from the undemocratic nature of the decision to ban our march. However, there could under no circumstances be
any justification for the repeated and uncontrolled assault on peaceful demonstrators who at most were doing no more

than attempting to proceed up Whitehall and in many cases were actually endeavouring to comply with police
instructions. A large number of our supporters, none of whom, of course, were in any way prepared for any sort of

physical confrontation, sustained injuries from baton-wielding police officers and others were arbitrarily
arrested.
We refer you, inter alia, to the attached letter from George Galloway MP to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan

Police which details some of the gross and unjustified brutality which accompanied much of the policing

operation.

We hold that this conduct is entirely unacceptable in a democratic country.
The determination of the police to ensure that our voices cannot be heard in Whitehall on an issue of urgent public

controversy, at the apparent behest of the US President, presents a bleak picture of the government's priorities.

/>

We are therefore seeking an urgent meeting with you to discuss this issue. You will understand that there can be no

question of any further co-operation between the Stop the War Coalition and the Metropolitan Police in regard to
future protests until these concerns are addressed to our satisfaction.



Yours


Andrew Murray
Lindsey German
 

News and articles of interest

Here are some articles and news reports we think are worth looking at

Gaza: The Real Terrorists - Stuart Littlewood
The patience of all decent men must surely be exhausted.
Today's slaughter of innocents in Gaza, with at least 230 reported killed in raids on "Hamas terror operatives" (as the Israeli military put it), amounted to "a mass execution", said Hamas.
Can there now be any doubt who the real terrorists are?
The killing spree couldn't have happened without the tacit approval of America, Britain and the EU. The political pea-brains that direct the pro-Israel western alliance were partying, gorging themselves on Christmas fare or binge-shopping while this massacre of hungry women and children and their despairing menfolk in Gaza was being planned and executed.

Stench of Death Hangs Over Gaza - Ola Attallah
With thick clouds of smoke billowing into the sky and dead bodies littering into the streets, a stench of death rose from the ruins of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, December 27.
"Where are my sons?" screamed Um Ibrahim as she ran hysterically looking for her little kids.
She lives near a security compound Israeli planes pounded to the ground on Saturday.
"I don't know what happened to them," cried the bereaved mother.
Her neighbor Um Abed fell unconscious when she saw her son among the dead in the attacks.
At least 206 Palestinians were killed in massive Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
"The number of victims has reached 195 martyrs with more than 300 wounded, 120 of whom are critically hurt," said Moawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.
"The toll has gone up because of new Israeli raids and the discovery of several martyrs under the rubble."

Gaza massacres must spur us to action - Ali Abunimah
"I will play music and celebrate what the Israeli air force is doing." Those were the words, spoken on Al Jazeera today by Ofer Shmerling, an Israeli civil defense official in the Sderot area adjacent to Gaza, as images of Israel's latest massacres were broadcast around the world.
A short time earlier, US-supplied Israeli F-16 warplanes and Apache helicopters dropped over 100 bombs on dozens of locations in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip killing at least 195 persons and injuring hundreds more. Many of these locations were police stations located, like police stations the world over, in the middle of civilian areas. The US government was one of the first to offer its support for Israel's attacks, and others will follow.

Face to face with the Taliban - Ghaith Abdul Ahad
Qomendan Hemmet sat cross-legged under a window of the mud-walled room. His shoulder, sunk in an old military jacket, rested against the wall and a radio antenna stuck out of his pocket. Next to him sat his deputy, wrapped in a big blanket, silent and sleepy. Around the room sat his men, their faces contorted by years of fighting and poverty, dressed in shalwar kameez and magazine pouches, eyes dark as the kohl lining them. Radios crackled, phones rang non-stop, and more fighters came, drank tea and left with orders.
"Salar is the new Falluja," declared Qomendan Hemmet emphatically. "The Americans and the Afghan army control the highway, and five metres on each side. The rest is our territory."

Communication Workers Union vows to fight any privatisation - Christine Buckley
The main postal union gave warning yesterday that it would fight any move to partly privatise Royal Mail as expectations grow that the organisation is facing a huge shake-up.
This week the Government is expected to publish an independent report that it commissioned into the postal service which will pave the way for an overhaul of Royal Mail.

Free Bush shoe-thrower, Iraqis urge - Aljazeera.net
Thousands of Iraqis have demonstrated in Baghdad's Sadr City in support of a journalist being held in custody after throwing his shoes at George Bush, the US president.
Muntazer al-Zaidi was detained for what the Iraqi government on Monday said was a "barbaric and ignominious act" during a news conference the previous day.
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