URGENT

by UR Tue Apr 08, 2003 14:19

About 20 so far arrested. They are being baton charged by riot cops with shields and batons everyone get down there

by aND Tue Apr 08, 2003 14:43

Peter hadden and the SP stood at the side watching

by Sean Tue Apr 08, 2003 15:10

Story up to 14:20
The protest started in a very unprotesting manner with 500 plus people lying on the sidewalk outside the city hall in Belfast city centre with cars passing freely by. There was a minute silence in respect of those killed in the war and then the loudspeaker speaker thanked everyone for coming and (the usual) asked everyone to disperse and go away.
Fortunately at this very moment some people in white overalls arrived banging drums and blowing whistles. As they crossed the road, there was a rush of people into the centre of the road, maybe less than 100 people initially. A couple of protest organisers (one of them ICTU) took the megaphone and asked people to go home. They were drowned out by whistles and cheers; one man was challenged for possession of his megaphone. He didn’t hang about.
There was a bit of a standoff for a while then the robocops arrived and started picking people out in a rather violent manner. One guy, who was prostate on the ground got whacked twice full force into the chest area. Another guy threw a bag of jam towards the officers, most of it landing on the road but some hitting the riot shields. They robocops continued picking people out one by one and displayed their idea of equality by showing an equal absence of mercy to women and young kids. An activist well known for her work in Palestine spread some of the jam that was lying on the road onto a couple of riot shields before being dragged away by the hair. Most of all this was being videotaped by various media organisations and individuals.
There followed a standoff during which the cops did not attempt to attack anyone. There was drumming and some slogans/singing (one song was “we all live in a terrorist regime” to the tune of yellow submarine).
Eventually the robocops moved back 50 metres behind a line of armoured landrovers to be replaced by a line of normally uniformed cops (which is no doubt what viewers will see on their TV screens). This retreat by the robocops released whoops of jubilation from the protesters. I presume that they were conscious of the image they were portraying to the world and were ordered to tone it down. Or perhaps someone there had a brain and figured that if they stood back and let people have a bit of a protest they’d toddle off in their own good time. Which is what I did, to get back to work. As i left there was still a couple of hundred people on the road and more on the footpath and spirits were high.
Let us hope that there will be an investigation into the use of violence by the police on peaceful protesters who offered absolutely no resistance (apart from not moving from the road).

by Sean Tue Apr 08, 2003 15:11

...the indymedia clock is still an hour behind.

by Sean Tue Apr 08, 2003 16:41

See report by me above. All original reports on this newswire are IMC reports.