Riot police attack peaceful protesters at G20 Climate Camp
Police cover-up likely of man's death in the City

Riot police used shields and batons in unprovoked attacks on peaceful protesters. It took place at the Climate Camp on Bishopsgate in the City of London during the first day of the G20 protests on Wednesday 1st April 2009.



Anyone watching this clip can see clearly how the police aggressively attack a peaceful crowd with steel truncheons and riot shields. Reports from Christian and non-violent protesters at Bishopsgate claim also that the police waded, kicking into peaceful sit-downs.

I watched most of the reports throughout the day on BBC News 24. It soon became clear to me that while it was impossible for the editors to eliminate all signs of police violence that it was happening right before our very eyes. A mounted police charge, for example, was reported but not shown viewers.

The man who died in the City has been identified as a Mr Ian Tomlinson and whilst the mainstream media have chosen in the main not to report his death there has been coverage in The Guardian. Other than that it has been the blogosphere that has covered it with reports by Craig Murray, Red Pepper, Chicken Yoghourt, Indymedia and several messages on the Medialens message board.


Ian Tomlinson, looking dazed just prior to his death

The consensus of feeling is that Mr Tomlinson may have been the victim of police violence which was then quickly covered-up by the police and friendly reporters from the MSM. Allegations that the police were attacked by the crowd with bottles when attempting to take him to medics have since been denied by on-the-scene witnesses.

G20 Protest London - Memorial after death of protester


See here for more videos of Memorial Events including police intervention

My initial suspicions, yesterday, that the police were covering-up the true circumstances of Mr Tomlinson's death have now grown since reading today's reports. What amazes me is how this death has been hushed-up by the establishment's hacks with no reports of it at all on the TV. A few months ago, the death of a Greek protester led to the fall of a government.

And here in police-state Britain? Nada!

G20: The police ruined a peaceful protest
I watched the police push into the crowd with a brutality that was not only shocking but utterly unnecessary

US-Europe tensions erupt on eve of G20 summit

French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held an extraordinary joint press conference on Wednesday, the eve of the G20 summit of leading economies, to underscore their common opposition to US demands that they implement larger stimulus programs in response to the global economic crisis.

more...

The secrets of Obama's surge
The President is not exactly telling all that’s going on in AfPak

Sure, he's not. And neither's his sidekick, Gordon Brown. As we've been saying all along on this blog, the USUK presence in Afghanistan is not about the phoney 'War on Terrorism'. The Anglo-Americans are there for geostrategic reasons, gas and oil, and keeping the region within a US hegemony. Glad that Escobar agrees.

Also, see my earlier article, Afghanistan: The Dollar Line.

G20 Protester dies at the City Demo

The G20 protests have claimed their first death.

A man "fell over and became unconscious, prompting a member of the public to call emergency services, a spokeswoman for the London Ambulance Service said."

"He was still breathing at the time but soon stopped, and despite attempts to resuscitate him, later died."

"It was not clear how the man died, but some people had earlier been injured when protesters held in a police cordon for several hours following the march surged against the crash barriers."

While no further information is available just now it must be asked if this man's death might have been caused directly or indirectly by the Police penning-in and detaining demonstraters who wished to leave and go home. Up to seven hours, in the City and at Bishopsgate at the Climate Change demo, protesters were prevented from leaving by the Police using Stop and Search Anti-Terror laws. People were only allowed to leave one-by-one after being stopped, searched and having their identities taken.

As well as this there have been several reports of Police brutality, the unneccesary and provocative use of truncheons against non-violent individuals and peaceful demonstrators being kicked. No doubt other instances of Police violence will emerge in time.

All this courtesy of the Metropolitan Police, the police force that murdered John Charles de Menezies and were let off the hook by a whitewash inquiry. The Metropolitan police should consider itself lucky to be dealing with relatively docile British protesters. If this had been on the Continent there would, no doubt, have been greater violence.

And yet the UK Police are becoming evermore violent and authoritarian, thanks to politicians who seem determined to turn Britain into a full-blown police state. How many more deaths, I wonder, before G20 ends?

G20 protests: Riot police, or rioting police?

G20 April 1st Action Day Timeline of Events

22:20 - Climate Camp: Up to a thousand people remain inside the besiged camp. The police have said that they will allow people to leave, but will take names and addresses of everyone who does so. There's been a camp meeting but no consensus has been reached on what to do. Generally there is still a positive atmosphere amonst the peaceful demonstrators.

21:35 - Climate Camp: A photographer was taken to one side by police and threatened under anti-terror legislation that he was not allowed to take pictures of police "engaged in their duty." Police confiscated his camera and attempted to delete all the photographs he'd taken. The photographer pulled out another camera to film them doing this, and was threatened again, but police then returned the first camera.

more...