Anyone who saw newsnight last night, may be rightly nervous at the state of policing in the UK. Good, thoughtful, young people get together to take on companies who avoid paying their taxes. Their courageous actions to highlight the issues behind corporate tax havens, are met with extraordinary force.
As groups of bandaged protesters try to occupy a Boots store to highlight money lost that could be spent on the NHS, they are suddenly sprayed with CS gas. It is horrific and disproportional violence. Clearly the police are behaving once more as if the mistakes of the G20 protests had never been rectified.
After the death of Ian Tomlinson, the police were rightly shaken, and began to internally challenge some very dubious tactics. But it has not taken long before heavy policing of protest has reared its ugly head.
I'm meeting with the police tomorrow to discuss how they intend to deal with local UK uncut actions. The last one at Topshop met with bizarre tactics of arresting people and trying to charge them with 'assualting police officers' when it was evidently not the case. Will they continue to get tougher with protesters, or will they accept that tactics of non-violent direct action are legitimate in exposing the antics of these corporations?
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