Just to clarify my personal opinion on the subject.
The key thing for me is that the use of kettling is particularly inappropriate in peaceful protests. For me there is more of a grey area around protests where there is a significant violent element and the organisers of the protest are uncooperative with the police or deliberately do not inform them (i.e football hooligans, etc) so changing the law with regards to kettling as a whole would be a big ask in my opinion and also very difficult given the law lords ruling on kettling at the 2001 may day protests.
Although there were reports of violence at the Bank of England protest, I am sympathetic there as I think the vast majority were peaceful and the police meted out collective punishement via kettling.I also aim to keep political aims and objectives out of this group as its a very diverse bunch, had people ranging from Labour/Lib Dems to anarchists messaging me.
By focusing on kettling (and the wider issue of proptionality i message out to people about) I hope to maintain legitimacy for this group and make it appealing to mainstream public opinion and the MP's and Journalists I'm already working with.Going back to the protest I will try and get some flyers done I think and re-employ my desktop publishing skills!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment