Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Your cops are your responsiblity- The Aubonne Bridge fight continues

The Aubonne Bridge Support Group | 14.11.2004 19:05 | Repression | London | World

On Friday the climbers of the Aubonne Bridge Action entered the Chateau in Lausanne, seat of the government of Vaud, Switzerland with a banner saying "Your cops are your responsibility!" The two activists, who nearly had been killed by the
police cutting their climbing rope during the G8 last year, together with
supporters and the press, asked the Conseil d'Etat to accept responsibility
for the actions of their police force.

Your Cops are your Responsibility!
Your Cops are your Responsibility!


Justice for Aubonne - The fight continues. Action au Chateau: Martin Shaw and Gesine Wenzel demand disciplinary action and compensation. Their appeal against the judge's whitewash of the police declares the police intervention on the Aubonne bridge as illegal and requests further investigation.

A document produced by their lawyer requested disciplinary action to be taken
against the officer who cut the rope, Michael Deiss, and his senior officer,
Claude Poget, for their illegal intervention. Until now the state has been
ignoring the fact, that both have been disobeying the official G8 guidelines
and neglected their duty to protect human life. Nothing has been done about
the obvious dysfunction of the internal police hierarchy. The G8 guidelines
stipulated that the police have to engage in communication with protestors,
even in spontaneous actions. The instructions were to act proportionally and
to respect the right of freedom of expression. At the same time compensation for the injuries and the suffering of the climbers has been claimed based on the Loi sur la responsabilite de l'Etat, des communes et de leurs agents. The state has been invited to engage spokes people to enter negotiations.

A 23 page appeal against the decision of the exmining magistrate to whitewash
the police has been handed in to the Tribunal of the Canton of Vaud. The
tribunal has been asked to charge Poget and Deiss for endangering life and
severe body harm to Martin Shaw and simple body harm on Gesine Wenzel plus
charging Poget for false testimony. The latter had made several false
statements that are in clear contradiction to the video evidence.
Considering that the instruction judge had ignored the requests for
investigation from the accusing party, the open questions were repeated to the
higher court: How can it be that police teams are formed that can't
communicate? Had the Swiss German police reinforcement permission to act
although they could not even understand orders or information? What was the
content of the Poget's phone conversations before the cut of the rope? To what
extent was language a real problem? Which orders and which information was
given when, by whom and to whom?

The declaration of the instruction judge had been criticised for being biased.
It contains elements that are arbitrary and contra-dictionary to the file. The
judge had ruled that the temerity of the activists were the main cause for the
incident. Martin Shaw rectifies: "The biggest "mistake" we made was to believe
that the police would actually follow their orders !" Gesine Wenzel said despite he history of police impunity in Switzerland and the general rise of repression of political dissent: "How is it possible, that we have been declared guilty for endangering the lives of the drivers and the police who nearly killed us are let off without even a trial?How can people still believe they live in a democratic, neutral country when double standards are so obviously applied?" Martin Shaw is certain: "Now is
the time for the politicians to accept responsibility."

The Aubonne Bridge Support Group
- e-mail: aubonne@no-log.org
- Homepage: http://www.aubonnebridge.net

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech