Over 200 people protested on Thursday, 12 April, at Sandford House, the immigration reporting centre in Solihull, near Birmingham, against forced mass-deportations to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Police served a section 14 of the public order act on protesters on the morning of the protest. Section 14 restricted the protest to only 30 people, who were penned-in behind a hedge next to the car park of Sandford House. Organisers were expecting around 400 people to attend the protest.
Protesters escaped the confines of the pen by stepping through a hole in the hedge. They then proceeded to occupy Homer Road where police arrested a person sitting in the road. Another demonstrator went to ask what was happening and got punched in the face by Officer P. Dutton (3792) before also being arrested.
Just as police managed to push people back onto the pavement, another coach load of protesters spilled onto the street shouting "liberez! liberez!" and the road was occupied for another two hours. Police then attempted to confine people in their pen again, but protesters refused to leave and re-ocupied the road once more in an amazing show of solidarity until their friends were released.
Police served a section 14 of the public order act on protesters on the morning of the protest. Section 14 restricted the protest to only 30 people, who were penned-in behind a hedge next to the car park of Sandford House. Organisers were expecting around 400 people to attend the protest.
Protesters escaped the confines of the pen by stepping through a hole in the hedge. They then proceeded to occupy Homer Road where police arrested a person sitting in the road. Another demonstrator went to ask what was happening and got punched in the face by Officer P. Dutton (3792) before also being arrested.
Just as police managed to push people back onto the pavement, another coach load of protesters spilled onto the street shouting "liberez! liberez!" and the road was occupied for another two hours. Police then attempted to confine people in their pen again, but protesters refused to leave and re-ocupied the road once more in an amazing show of solidarity until their friends were released.
Protest Against DRC Deportations in Solihull
- video/mp4 77M
Officer P. Dutton (3792)
Officer P. Dutton (3792) punches a demonstrator in the face
Congo is the largest country in Central Africa, bordering nine other nations. It is fabulously rich in minerals but the majority of it's 50 million people have only known poverty, oppression, instability and war. 'The War the World ignores' is a war that still goes on and has killed more people than Adolf Hitler's armies in World War II. It is not a distant 'tribal war' but a war whose trail leads directly to you in the so-called developed world. It leads to your computer, your remote controls, your mobile phone and your diamond necklace if you're rich enough to buy one. Today the country's infrastructure and institutions are in ruins. Ethnic power blocks and foreign manipulators in the guise of multi-national corporations vie for control of its politics and immense resources.
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