Repression

4 May 2012Blog

On 3 May the police removed the remaining peace box, tent and other items of Maria Gallastegui's Peacestrike protest in Parliament Square after an injunction against the enforcement of the new restrictions on protest was lifted. Below are images of the peace boxes, inside and out, from the last year, and an update on the current situation.

see A SOCPA victory and the blanket ban and Parliament Square Peace Camp resists eviction


The remaining peace box on the morning before it was removed by police.

Maria has been protesting 24/…

3 May 2012Blog

Simon Moore, the first person to be served with an ASBO relating to the Oympics, was in court again today. 

Simon was served the Anti Social Behaviour Order after he was convicted for public order offences defending common land at Leyton Marsh against development for Olympic baseball courts.

The ASBO prohibits him from going within 100 yards of an Olympic venue or route, obstructing any Olympic participant - including officials and spectators, going onto any private land without permission of the owner, and from disrupting the Jubilee or Olympics events. (See more:…

27 April 2012Feature

The police continue to prevent journalists doing their job

 


21 March, Parliament Square photo: Rikki

While documenting Budget Day protests in central London on 21 March, I wandered across Parliament Square and was accosted by two ‘Heritage Wardens’ warning me that the grass was out of bounds. As Boris’s fences have finally been removed so that the public can once more enjoy this historic space, I refused to leave, and the police were summoned.

27 April 2012News

On 18 April, US federal authorities seized a server in New York belonging to Riseup, a radical internet service provider.

Over 300 email accounts, between 50-80 email lists, and several websites were taken off the internet by the FBI action.

27 April 2012News

The national domestic extremism unit has failed to impose anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) on two Catholic peace activists, during a trial arising from a demonstration to mark the anniversary of the Afghan war (see PN 2539).

The application cited 14 times over the past 21 years when Chris Cole had been arrested at protests involving spray paint or bolt-croppers. It sought to ban him from the City of…

1 December 2011News

EDF employees get fines and prison sentences

On 10 November, a Paris court gave four men working for EDF, the French nuclear energy company, fines and prison sentences for a surveillance operation in 2006 that included hacking into Greenpeace France’s computers. EDF itself was fined €1.5m, and ordered to pay €500,000 (£427,770) in damages to Greenpeace.

Pascal Durieux, EDF’s head of nuclear production security in 2006, was jailed for one year (three years with two suspended) and given a €10,000 fine. His deputy, Pierre-Paul…

3 July 2011Blog

This content has been removed from the website on request of one of the authors.

1 July 2011News in Brief

Between 1-8 June, 12 members of Orlando Food Not Bombs, in Florida US) were arrested for feeding too many homeless people from their stall. A city ordinance forbids feeding homeless people in city parks without a permit or feeding more than 25 at a time with a permit. (Groups are only allowed two permits per year.) The police said FnB had fed more people than the permit allowed. FnB didn’t have a permit because they refuse on principle to apply for one! The penalty for violating the…

1 June 2011News in Brief

On 29 April, while the mainstream media was distracted by royal goings-on, around 60 left-wing Facebook sites were removed from the web. The sites were mainly anti-cuts groups including Anti-Cuts Across Wigan, Arts Against Cuts, Bristol Ukuncut, Chesterfield Stopthecuts, Leeds City College Against Fees and Cuts and Notts-Uncut Part-of UKUncut. Student, SWP and anarchist groups were also hit.

Someone had used the fact that these groups had wrongly set up “profiles” (meant to be for…

1 May 2011News in Brief

On 18 April, police shots killed one person, Tabrez Sejkar, and injured several others at a protest against a nuclear power plant in Jaitapur, India. According to the authorities, around 700 to 800 local fishermen marched to a police station near the power plant, and pelted it with stones for nearly two hours. The police used lathis (long truncheons) and then plastic bullets, before opening fire with live ammunition.

9 November 2010Comment

A letter to Peace News, thinking now of Dale Farm, Essex.