Writing in the Evening Post (15 April 09), Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham South, describes the swoop by 200 police on climate change protesters on Easter Monday as surreal. "The 114 people arrested may be closer to al-Ikea than al Qaida," he says, "- a self assembly group of climate change campaigners planning another protest at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station."
Mr Simpson reveals that his daughter attends the nursery at Iona School on Sneinton Dale which had to be closed - as result of damage caused by police, not protesters. The activists had confined themselves to an unused wing adjacent to the school but the police smashed into every part of the school, treading glass through a carpeted play area - presumably in search of deadly teeny eco-warriors.
We don't of course know what the protesters were intending to do. Other sources have suggested that the 114 people arrested have been bailed without charge but with stringent restrictions preventing them from explaining themselves until a court hearing - which may never happen.
As Mr Simpson says, "the trouble with pre-emptive arrest is that you don't have a crime ... Only major acts of international terrorism justify pre-emptive arrests. Otherwise we enter the Orwellian world of 'thought crimes' and the closed society. No freedom of assembly. No right to challenge something deeply damaging to society ... it just doesn't help if we end up locking up those who would save the planet, rather than those who drive us towards climate crises."
The police threat to charge people with conspiracy has also forced everyone to deny responsibility. This includes the Climate Camp Eastside Group (covering East Midlands and East of England), which closed down the Ratcliffe power station briefly in 2007, and Notts Against New Coal which has supported other local protests.
Police searched a number of other addresses including the Sumac Centre which acts as a mailing address for Eastside (as well as for Nottingham Friends of the Earth).
We can reveal that Nottingham FOE also had no involvement in the planned Easter protest. Maybe next year?
As another local activist not involved said, the heavy-handed police action caused more publicity than any of us could have produced. Bloody marvellous!
For background seeAlan Simpson's Evening Post article (you can comment online)
Notts Indymedia:
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