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.

Mass arrests for thought crime

Autonomous Nottingham | 14.04.2009 10:51 | Climate Chaos | Repression

A mass police raid in the early hours of yesterday morning resulted in the arrests of 114 individuals in the grounds of a Sneinton school. Those arrested have been released on bail following questioning related to “suspicion of conspiracy to commit trespass and aggravated criminal damage”. The police are saying that those arrested were “planning a period of prolonged disruption to the safe running of Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station”. The Nottingham Evening Post, in it’s usual measured and objective style, is saying that there was a “plot to attack a power station”.

Whilst this kind of raid is unprecedented in size, it is nothing new in the world of direct action. There is even a precedent in environmental direct action in the region, with police arresting eight people for “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” in relation to anti-M1 widening protests in 2007. After a year on bail, the 8 had the charges against them thrown out of court.

As is now usual for those accused of environmental direct action, several raids were made on the homes of those arrested and the Sumac Centre was raided. When raids were being made in the aftermath of a blockade of E.On’s offices last year, they used keys from the accuseds’ personal possessions and attempts to observe the police’s actions were met with refusal and intimidation. The police often use these raids to confiscate important personal belongings such as computers until the investigation is over - a punishment for the arrested irrespective of whether they are ever actually convicted.

The use of conspiracy charges is also a tactic increasingly employed by the police. This blog has already covered the SHAC trial, where animal rights activists were convicted of “Conspiracy to blackmail”. Earlier this year, those accused of large scale damage at Brighton arms company EDO had their charges changed from the ridiculous allegation of burglary to “conspiracy to cause criminal damage”, and there are numerous other cases where anti-war direct actions have led to conspiracy charges being brought. For the police, conspiracy charges are an excellent way of arresting first and then finding the evidence to selectively charge. When they can’t find anything through raids on homes, questioning and intimidation they still gain from having gathered a load of information on protesters, taken their personal details, fingerprints and DNA, and intimidated and harassed those individuals. Whilst defendants have the many months until their trial to worry about proving their innocence, often under ridiculous bail conditions, it is harder for them to get involved in campaigning.

Of course, the police are using the media to try to get convictions already, making claims that they have found “specialist equipment” that would lead them to suspect that those arrested were planning direct action against Ratcliffe. Given the nature of “specialist equipment” that was seized outside last year’s Camp for Climate Action in Kingsnorth (board games, crayons, bike tools) it would not be surprising if this turned out to be very flimsy evidence indeed, but the phrase “specialist equipment” has now been planted in the public imagination. E.On, as we might expect, are also trying to demonise the arrested. A spokesperson said of the alleged ‘plot’ “While we understand that everyone has a right to protest peacefully and lawfully, this was clearly neither of those things.” Whilst it is not clear that anyone was actually planning any direct action from what ‘evidence’ has been released so far, this is a little presumptuous. Even if there was an intended action against Ratcliffe, the only comparable incident, the 2007 direct action against the station, was not lawful but was peaceful. Activists walked onto the site and chained themselves to equipment. Indeed, the climate change movement has been characterised by non-violent direct action - chiefly blockades, office occupations and protests. But don’t worry about the evidence - E.On want to inject the spectre of violence to the precedings.

This mass pre-emptive arrest is a very worrying precedent indeed. Whilst it is still too early to say much about what was and wasn’t going on, the fact of the matter is that the police were able to find out about it and are using it as carte blanche to raid and interrogate. Whether they get any successful convictions or not is almost irrelevant. It sounds like a lot of activists are going to be taken out of action for the duration (which looks likely to be long) and the seeds of suspicion and recrimination will be sown. It is absolutely essential that everyone involved in direct action takes security culture seriously so that incidents like this cannot happen. Everyone needs to know why security is important, i.e. so that you don’t incriminate yourself and all your mates, and be sensible regarding how information is distributed.

In the meantime, we will need to keep a look out for the fallout of these arrests and support anyone who is charged. The cops have certainly not beaten climate change movement but we do need to rethink how we organise and act.

Autonomous Nottingham
- e-mail: autonomousnott[at]riseup[dot]net
- Homepage: http://autonomousnott.wordpress.com/

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