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.

Police are sticking their heads above the trenches of the social war

Francesca | 22.09.2014 23:07 | Globalisation | Policing | Social Struggles | South Coast | World

A curious article appeared in the mainstream BBC news today, stating that police believe that up to 20 actions carried out in and around Bristol may have links to so called 'domestic extremism' .

This could be an attempt by the police to perhaps draw out comrades from down that way out into the open, perhaps by wanting them to go onto websites to claim actions in their groups name so that cops can nail more IP addresses like they already did with the Indymedia server issue in Bristol these past months.

It is this author's belief that those comrades acting in the social war and doing these actions (which I support) are perhaps in more danger now as it could also be an attempt to play a game in which those comrades may wish to go out now and commit some new actions to further attack the system which we despise in all its forms. However, you could be being watched and that is why the police have issued these statements, perhaps in the hope that you will break cover to go out into the night, thus affording them a chance of nabbing you.

You must be careful, brothers and sisters of the social war, as this appearance in the news of this so called 'domestic extremism' is a break from the usual non-reporting that the mainstream BBC/SKY news usually conducts when anything even remotely looking or smelling like the social war carried out by insurrectionary anarchists or others with an anti-system, anti-capitalistic, animal/earth liberation vibe, whether in Bristol or Nottingham (like the Serco attack and attacks on G4S vehicles), or London (countless attacks against banks and cop targets).

So the question is, why have cops come and claimed these and other actions in Bristol as potentially being 'domestic extremism'?

It is my belief that it is an intelligence phishing exercise of sorts, in an attempt to finely focus their resources down to a few people in and around Bristol so that maybe soon they will make busts and then the media hype around those busts will be partly already in place thanks to planted stories like the one appearing in the BBC today.

If you followed the unfolding of the Bombas Caso, or 'the bomb case' in Chile, (excellent free-from-copyright or copyleft documentary about the whole case available here -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j4hXQc-VmI) then you will understand that in Chile this idea of creating a myth around the anarchist movement helped, if only for a short time, the cops and courts to make the population think that the case against the defendants was open and shut when in actual fact there was barely any real evidence and those comrades that were arrested and held for months were eventually set free after it became apparent that the whole case was more or less a fabrication.

But the point is, what helped in that fabrication was the media publishing reports on attacks and linking them directly to anarcho communiques or just simply making them link because they wanted them to link to anarcho ideas, even if there had been no communique. This in turn helped the police case a bit as it provided them with an opportunity to nick people or raid squats and other social centres on the grounds of simply being an anarchist, in the process tarring the whole anarchist scene in Chile with the same insurrectionary brush.

In Bristol in the last few years there has been a steady increase in the number of actions carried out in the name of FAI/ELF style affinities and for me, that is a good thing, I am glad that has happened, but what of course has been happening parallel to that is that the cops have been gathering intel and with the recent indymedia Bristol server raid and now this BBC report, it seems the cops are up to something more than their usual shit.

I knocked this article together- if you can call an article, more like a slight rant - out of a need to get across to those acting in and around Bristol to be careful at this time as it appears that the police are attempting to gather a case together, perhaps hoping they will snare somebody soon enough and then create a media circus around it.

I care for my brothers and sisters in the struggle and I know lots of us have moved down to Bristol in the last few years, especially since the Tesco protests and the august 2011 uprising, as Bristol and Cardiff and those areas are, lets be frank, where it is happening for people who wanna be part of the solution and not the problem.

So it is no surprise then, really, that the cops would choose to target Indymedia servers for Bristol Indymedia, effectively gathering as much info as they could on any one who has issued a communique on their site (think about the police training ground that was torched, that got covered on there a bit, for example).

Now this BBC article is interesting as it mentions nothing at all of any other actions around the country, against serco, against prisons, probation offices, banks, estate agents, against g4s,etc, yet these companies and institutions have all been targeted in the last few years by groups or individuals with an affinity to the anarcho-social war that is closely tied to the ethos/ideas of groups and individuals acting in Spain, Italy, Greece, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, USA, Germany and France. In this respect, it is the global social war that has hit these shores in the last few years, especially since the movements in Greece hit all the headlines and inspired thousands to get back out there and do stuff. But the BBC in Bristol keep their story to just the Bristol based stuff, which indicates to me that this was a police led story, not a story coming from a journalist because if it had come from even a half decent journo (if there is such a thing working for the Beeb) then it surely would have mentioned a connection to actions in other areas? Just from the media circus point of view it would have made their story better. But it doesnt go wider at all, which I think is a clue that this is really about the police putting out their feelers in hope of getting some kind of useful response from within the movement in and around Bristol.

the crux of what I'm saying is, 'the pigs in and around Bristol are up to something' so be fucking careful, even more careful than you have already been. Perhaps change your phones, your SIM cards, for example or be wary of any new comers in your scene as the cops will surely have sent undercovers out into the Bristol scene to try and gather info on these 'domestic extremists'...

fire to it all.


original BBC article here -  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-29285280

Francesca

Comments

Display the following 11 comments

  1. The article appears measured — Bristol resident
  2. Blah baa — BBC is for gimps
  3. Trolls ahoy — Reeda
  4. Our local cider plod — asdfghj
  5. two people on remand? — i call bullshit
  6. Details of two people on remand — asdfghgfds
  7. In custody? — Reeda
  8. Pretty sure it's two people currently on remand — asdfghjkhgfd
  9. nope — anhgsdjfd is a ... ?
  10. It is indeed a puzzle — asdfgh
  11. Steady on old chap — ABC'er
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