Warning: contains references to UK events without explanations for foreigners. Also contains language, and scenes of mild peril.
Okay, so we all watched the G20 protests, marvelling at our boys in blue’s ability to turn even mild-mannered protesters into trapped, frustrated and belligerent ones, and we all (I hope) watched aghast at the footage released of Ian Tomlinson’s assault by badgeless Metropolitan Police moments before his death. Well, not wanting to be left out of things, Kent Police have now got in on the act, assaulting, hog-tying and jailing two peaceful protesters at Kingsnorth power station for the crime of requesting a policeman’s badge number (which he is legally required to display). Watch the whole video, remembering at all times that these two women merely asked an officer for his number, and took his photograph. See if you can make it to the end without swearing at the screen.
Those not closely following UK policing tactics might demur, thinking the women’s actions needlessly provocative; well, the Police started it. Recently they have taken to deploying “Forward Intelligence Teams” or Fits to legal, peaceful protests. Their job is to capture on video and camera everyone present, as part of a monitoring programme that allows them to build dossiers on all these protesters that they can use in any subsequent prosecutions. This comes in handy when officers are injured while policing protests, for example, as they will then know who to finger. Who can forget, after all, the many grievous injuries sustained at a previous Kingsnorth protest, including the officer who was “stung on finger by possible wasp.” If that wasp had been properly surveilled prior to its vicious attack, it might now be doing porridge instead of pissing off bees and feeling up lady wasps.
Remembering of course that these are peaceful, legal protests, the point of this police surveillance is clear: its chilling effect. They want to inculcate an atmosphere of caution amongst protesters, for no better reason than that they annoy the police. Reasoning that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, a group called Fit Watch have taken to filming, photographing and cataloguing the police right back. The police, who obviously lack appreciation for a culinary metaphor, decided that no, this wasn’t on, and proceeded to wrestle the Fit Watch members to the ground, bind them hand and foot and chuck them in prison, where they sat for four days, refused bail because they presented a danger to the “physical and mental welfare” of police officers.
Now, normally I’m not on board with anti-police rants, deriving as they usually do from situations in which the protagonist was a complete dick to one specific police officer, who understandably got annoyed. This, however, is something else. This is a pattern of behaviour, a specific policy, and it’s repulsive. Unwilling to wait until actual crimes have been committed, the police have taken it upon themselves to discourage inconvenient protest with whatever means they can think of. They are stifling political demonstrations with heavy handed and insidious means, and it’s gone beyond the fucking pale. I cringe to use the phrase, so carelessly is it bandied about, but this is the stuff of an incipient police state. For better or worse, we have decided to prize the freedom of peaceful protest, and for the police to suppress it with coercive and outright abusive acts is an absolute fucking disgrace.
And, as ever, if someone “humourously” says something like, “fuck the Police out of Kent? Ah ha ha ha ha, that is funny because ‘to fuck’ means to have sex with,” I will gut you with a salad fork and not even feel bad about it afterwards.