A civil liberties group and a Labour MP have raised concerns about “heavy-handed policing” after a second consecutive weekend of “Kill the Bill” protests in Bristol produced footage of police punching a woman and attacking a newspaper reporter.
Liberty, the civil liberties group, called the footage following a prolonged stand-off in central Bristol on Friday "Disturbing scenes at #BristolProtests last night. Protest is a right not a privilege.Heavy-handed policing and further restrictions in the #PoliceCrackdownBill are a threat to that right."
Boris Johnson blamed the violence on “disgraceful attacks” by protesters against the Police Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, currently before parliament.
The bill has produced a string of demonstrations because of concerns that it would give police more power to curtail the right to protest. https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2021/03/defend-right-to-protest.html
“Our officers should not have to face having bricks, bottles and fireworks being thrown at them by a mob intent on violence and causing damage to property,”The police and the city have my full support" Boris Johnson wrote on Twitter
Whatever he was watching, the rest of us saw ' his officers' in Bristol battering seven shades out of peaceful protestors, using their shields to chop at the heads, necks and limbs of unarmed people . sitting down, in a deliberate and savage attempt to cause serious bodily harm.
Protesters tweeted videos showing a police officer’s apparent punching of a woman and officers’ use of the edges of their riot shields to hit protesters sitting on the ground.
Matthew Dresch, a reporter from the Daily Mirror, tweeted a video of an officer hitting him with a baton, he said: “Police assaulted me at the Bristol protest even though I told them I was from the press. I was respectfully observing what was happening and posed no threat to any of the officers. I have muted the latter part of the video to spare you all the pain of hearing my shrill voice.
https://twitter.com/MatthewDresch/status/1375606889740898305?s=20
https://twitter.com/MatthewDresch/status/1375606889740898305?s=20
Labour MP Nadia Whittome called for an investigation into the policing of the demonstrations.“Reports
of protesters and journalists injured last night in Bristol. The case
for an independent investigation into the policing of the #BristolProtests is clear,” she tweeted.
Two reporters from the Bristol Cable were also reportedly assaulted by police during protests earlier in the week. Bristol Cable editor Alon Aviram shared a video of protesters
shouting “we are peaceful, what are you”, while police in riot gear
brutally hit a defenceless demonstrator to the ground. He noted that
this was the moment the peaceful sitting protest descended into
violence:
"This went from a sitting protest into this in no time pic.twitter.com/SGkeXoRQS2
— Alon Aviram (@AlAviram) March 26, 2021
Protetors tweeted videos showing a police officer apparantly punching a woman and officers using the edges of their riot shields to hit protestors sitting on the ground.
Griff Ferris shared videos of police charging peaceful protestors – and
hitting them with batons. Police even hit protesters who had their hands
in the air:
" Just before the dogs came – police hitting people with batons and shields, many with their hands up in the air pic.twitter.com/iROYuvYBNf — Griff Ferris (@g__ferris) March 26, 2021
And Michael Volpe circulated a video of police using their riot shields to strike sitting protesters:
"Taking careful aim. Savagery and a deliberate
attempt to cause serious bodily harm. These officers will be hailed as
brave in the morning by their boss. This needs to be seen and shared. "pic.twitter.com/DeeyeCMWvg
Responding to the home secretary’Priti Patels statement calling protestors a
“criminal minority”, James Felton shared a video of police in riot gear
hitting a woman in the face:
Forgive my ignorance, but isn't a shield a defensive device, used passively to protect the holder?When a shield is used as a weapon to hit an unarmed person, that's misuse of power. And when police charge at you with horses and dogs, with batons and pepper spray, think it's only right that people defend themselves against that.
Whatever your political views ask yourselves how you would feel if it was your son, your daughter, your neighbor on the recieving end of those savage blows. This cannot be allowed, it has to stop. Defend this and your complicit, quietly accept it and your complicit.For every beating that is caught on camera, there are so many more the police hide.
As during the miners strike in the 1980's once a right wing government gives carte blanche to the police they go at it with gusto. We're but a whisker away from a police state at times,and will only continue if this draconian Bill is passed.Violence only ever seems to start when the police arrive, so how about we send no Police to the next protest and see what happens. The policing of the Kill the Bill protests has underlined concerns about police tactics against demonstrations following the manhandling of women by officers from London's Metropolitan Police at a vigil on Clapham Common in London for Sarah Everard, a murdered woman.
A serving Metropolitan Police officer, is awaiting trial for Everard's kidnap and murder.
It is worth noting that thousands of deaths in police custody in England and Wales since 1990. No officers have ever been convicted of their deaths, which have a number of different causes.
Further Kill the Bill protests have continued today throughout England, with further demonstrations scheduled. It is imperative that we defend the right to peacefully protest, a cornerstone of democracy. So please sign the following https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/579012?fbclid=IwAR289xE1hWrm_NdPnHqW0KcMSsAZBvHwPZJK9SIs7QRvVgyrdxs-6WI9XHM
