21 Nov 2011 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
Leah Borromeo says the 2012 games in London could damage free expression in the United Kingdon
A series of Home Office proposals could ban protests during the London 2012 Olympic games. In reaction to the longevity and scale of recent Occupy London takeovers of public and private space at St Paul’s Cathedral, Finsbury Square and a former UBS bank, ministers are reported to be drafting legislation loosely based on part 3 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 – paying particular note to restricting tents and “sleeping equipment” for up to 90 days around exclusion zones. Police and “authorised officers” will be allowed to disperse protests quickly. Presumably with “reasonable force”.
Don’t be too shocked or too quick to compare this to Beijing 2008. Then, the Beijing Organising Committee banned all foreign visitors and non-Beijing-resident Chinese from attending, watching or applying for the right to demonstrate in authorised protest zones. Athens had protest zones in 2004. So did the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002.
The reasoning behind these restrictions is always to “preserve the festivity” of the Olympic experience. And security. Always security. In London’s case, security means Britain apparently waives its own rights and customs to allow America to oversee its own security operations, laying on 21,000 private security contractors and enforcing the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006.
That allows police and “enforcement officers” the right of entry to private buildings suspected of contravening legislation on Olympic advertising. This includes: “advertising of a non-commercial nature” and “announcements or notices of any kind” paying particular attention to “the distribution or provision of documents or articles, the display or projection of words, images, lights or sounds, and things done with or in relation to material which has or may have purposes or uses other than as an advertisement”. In other words, protest.
Artist Peter Kennard, noted for overtly political art in a public context says: “The Secretary of State has regulations banning ‘advertising in the vicinity of the Olympics’. How big is a vicinity? Words fail me and because I make public art in the ‘vicinity’ of the Olympics it might be safer for me if both words and images continue to fail me until after the Olympics”.
A London swamped with police, security officers and spy drones might just dampen all the fun. Providing you sing along with the hymn sheet laid on by the Games’ sponsors and ignore the £9.3 billion price tag, you’ll be fine. But if you argue that a corporate agenda and exploitation is being sold under the auspices of uniting the world under sport and “generating jobs”, you might be in trouble.
The proposed legislation and the laws already in place only serve to secure the profits made by those with heavy financial stakes in the Olympic Games. These corporations read like an anti-capitalist wet dream: McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Dow, G4S, BP…. They may bring jobs to an area, but totally undermine the community-building that encourages grass roots businesses and the local relationships and interactions that stem from that.
It’s interesting to note that the Home Office sees protest as a threat. They’re not only worried about homegrown “domestic extremists” with a grudge against capitalism but international groups seeking to use the Olympics as a platform to air their grievances about authoritarian regimes around the world. Syria, China and Bahrain spring quickly to mind. So instead of giving an example of a functioning democracy where everyone gets a voice and can practise free speech, Britain hides dissent in an attic like it’s an invalid child.
The idea that ministers are considering bans on protest off the back of a global Occupy movement further legitimises the idea that these restrictions are directed at those who oppose one of the greatest and most murderous regimes of the world…capitalism.
So here we go. I hate the Olympics. Arrest me.
8 Nov 2011 | Uncategorized
Several reports yesterday and today suggest that police will have baton rounds “available” to them at the student demonstration planned for 9 November.
This has led to some outrage. The Guardian got this absurd quote from Green Party London Assembly member Jenny Jones:
Any officer that shoots a student with a baton round will have to answer to the whole of London. How did we come to this? An unpopular government pushing ahead with policies that are all pain and no gain, relying on police armed with plastic bullets to deal with young people who complain about it all. The prospect of the police shooting at unarmed demonstrators with any kind of bullet is frankly appalling, un-British and reminiscent of scenes currently being used by murderous dictatorships in the Middle East.
This is a bizarre and wrongheaded comparison. To suggest that the possibility of baton rounds being used on protesters in London is somehow the same as the fact of tank shells being fired at protesters in Homs is insulting to people standing against genuine tyranny, as opposed to an “unpopular government”.
Then there is the idea that plastic bullets are somehow “un-British”, which will be news to the people of Northern Ireland, both the ones who identify as British and those who don’t.
Meanwhile, Chavs author Owen Jones has tweeted that the police are using “threats about rubber bullets” in an attempt to “intimidate protesters”. Jones fails to identify what exactly the “threat” is.
In fact, if one examines the language of the Metropolitan Police statement, what we are dealing with is a contingency rather than a threat. This from the BBC:
In a statement, Scotland Yard said rubber bullets – also known as baton rounds – were “carried by a small number of trained officers”, none of whom would be patrolling the route of the march.
“This tactic requires pre-authority, and would take time to deploy, and is one of a range of tactics we have had available for public order, and not used, in the past.”
The story seems to have first emerged on London radio station LBC yesterday. But it is really not a story at all, or at least not a development. The Metropolitan Police have always had the capacity to use rubber bullets, and chosen not to do so.
If it is the case that an LBC reporter contacted the police to ask them if plastic bullets were part of the police’s arsenal to deal with disturbance, it would have been wrong of the police to deny this was the case. But this is very, very different from saying they would be used, and indeed counterintuitive to Met tactics on protest. Plastic bullets are not very useful for containment, which is the Metropolitan Police’s current method of dealing with protesters. Containment (including “kettling”) involves close quarters engagement with protesters, circumstances in which, again, the use of plastic bullets would be absurd (and absurdly dangerous to all parties).
Perhaps the police should be clearer on their tactics and arsenal, but those who claim to be on the side of the protesters should be careful not to create unnecessary tension.
17 Oct 2011 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Thousands of demonstrators took part in an anti-censorship march in the Tunisian capital on Sunday. As the debate between Islamic conservatives and secularists continues in the country, the liberal demonstrators gathered for the march, dubbed “Aataqni” or “set me free” in Tunisian Arabic. The movement follows opposing protests last week, after the decision by Nessma TV to air the film Persepolis. The demonstrators at the Aataqni protest were alarmed by the reaction of the Islamists to the animated film, claiming if that kind of censorship was accepted, it could lead to censorship of other programs.
6 Oct 2011 | Egypt, Middle East and North Africa
Several Egyptian writers and journalists published blank columns in the country’s newspapers, in protest against the “military interference” of the press.
A number of independent writers, including Belal Fadl, Naglaa Bedir and Tarek El-Shenawy, wrote only a uniform note in their regular columns: “I did not write today in protest against censorship, confiscation of newspapers and the presence of military censors on papers.”
Other opinion columnists from the daily El-Youm El-Sabee newspaper — Abdel Rahman Youssef, Akram El-Kasas, Saied El-Shahat and Alaa El-Shafei — followed the lead of the lead, also leaving their columns blank.
The “blank columns” campaign follows a range of recent attacks on the press from authorities. Recently, there have been two raids on the Al Jazeera offices within a month, editions of two newspapers have been seized and destroyed, features have been blocked, and official warnings have been sent to Egyptian satellite TV channels regarding the content of political programmes.
Some writers, including Amr Hamzawy from newspaper Shorouk, wanted to join the campaign, but were prevented from doing so by their editors.
“I wanted to leave my column blank today but I couldn’t, so, instead, I am writing an opinion piece under the name of ‘Whitening the Column’ about the campaign,” Hamzawy told Ahram Online.
It is believed that the government is planning a further clampdown on the media ahead of parliamentary polls next month.
