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Mayday Media - FT mixes anarchists / terrorists / dates

M Hor | 03.04.2001 17:18

More media confusion and misrepresentation:



The article below ties together both protestors and terrorists in threatening the city of london (ie the financial bit) - NB the way the paragraphs dip in and out of talking about mayday protests and bomb attacks!

Also interesting to see how scotland yard apparently think RTS could \"repeat the huge disruption it caused in the City last year\" - strange seeing as how nothing happened in the city last year (2 yrs ago in 1999 yes) and the fact that RTS seem to be doing little for this years Mayday.

Still at least they are consistant in their date errors:

"The City authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of last June\'s violent anti-capitalist demonstrations, that led to 100 arrests and caused millions of pounds of damage to buildings in the Square Mile"

- no no no, the global Carnival against Capitalism in the city was on June 18th - 1999 - blimey you'd have thought they'd have remembered that correctly!

(or could they be just recycling old copy from last year?)

======================================

City plans defence against anarchists

news.ft.com

By Francesco Guerrera and Jimmy Burns Published:

March 29 2001 20:06GMT

City of London authorities are to host a summit with the police, banks and brokers to draw up plans to defend the Square Mile from planned anti-capitalist rallies on May 1.

The meeting was called by the Corporation of London, the City's local authority, amid growing fears of street riots and possible renewed terrorist attacks at the beginning of May. The police fear that two high-profile events such as May Day and a possible general election on May 3 could encourage terrorists to mount a series of attacks in the capital.

Scotland Yard believes the "Reclaim the Streets" anarchist group could, on and around May 1, repeat the huge disruption it caused in the City last year. The Corporation of London is understood to have invited the Metropolitan Police, the City of London Police, the British Transport Police and financial institutions whose headquarters are in the City to meet in a fortnight's time

People close to the Corporation said the summit was part of routine security meetings but would deal mostly with the planned May Day rallies. The City authorities are anxious to avoid a repeat of last June's violent anti-capitalist demonstrations, that led to 100 arrests and caused millions of pounds of damage to buildings in the Square Mile.

Several investment banks are concerned that the City's reputation as a financial centre will be damaged if the area is the target of more riots.

Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, yesterday said pressures on policing would intensify if a general election were called for May 3.

Both the police and MI5, the security service, believe that dissident republicans opposed to the peace process in Northern Ireland could be planning another attack on the mainland, and could use a general election campaign to boost their profile.

Intelligence gathering is being stepped up and all police leave has been cancelled during the first week of May. "There are indications that a sizeable minority of protesters are bent on violence towards the police, commercial institutions and government buildings," Sir John said on Thursday.

Police believe that dissident republicans are adopting a similar strategy to that followed by the mainstream IRA, switching tactics and stretching security resources to the full. As soon as an election date is announced, protection of key politicians will be stepped up, together with security around key buildings and shopping areas in London and other cities that could be the target of bomb attacks.

Dissident republicans are thought to have been behind a number of incidents in London over the past year, including an attack on the headquarters of MI6, the secret intelligence service.

======================================

Previous mayday 2001 media madness at:

uk.indymedia.org=2650

uk.indymedia.org=2360

uk.indymedia.org=1726

uk.indymedia.org=1916



M Hor
- Homepage: http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3J26VVWKC&live=true&tagid=YYY9BSINKTM&useoverridetemplate=IXLZHNNP94C

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

police intelligence

03.04.2001 23:30

Its time for all frontline police to wear large fluro numbers Sewn on or securely fastened.This is for their own protection .

oxymoron


Repression

04.04.2001 01:05

The attack on the M16 Building was an inside job, to make M16 look as if they are still have a job to do...ie. bomb themselves to justify stricter internal security. Did you know there is a deep undergound base there, several square miles and fully equipt with high tech facilities. Terrorists and Anti-Capitalists are synonymous in this article, and will be treated as such...

Stifled


RE: Stifled

04.04.2001 13:12

about the MI6 underground bunker, is that just speculation or is it a fact?

Direct Action?
mail e-mail: directactionuk@hotmail.com
- Homepage: http://members.nbci.com/durect_acion


Top Secret

05.04.2001 00:48

It's one of many, I haven't seen it, but they don't give guided tours!

Stifled


Even Guardian falls into line with misinfo...

05.04.2001 18:23

In a Feature entitled "Poll countdown: pitfalls and possibilities possible" the Guardian lists a series of dates which might provide challenges for blair government in the run up to a June election - one of the dates listed is Mayday...


* May 1 Anti-capitalist protesters are planning to repeat the violence seen on May day 2000, when 150,000 people disrupted central London, pillaging shops and defacing monuments and statues.


So it appears that the media misinfo campaign is fully succeeding with even the guardian now falling into place and pushing the official line mayday is all about planned violence.

And, surprise surprise - hey look folks, it's that same fucking figure of 150,000 people rioting in london last mayday! Now quoted in several of the recent articles, it betrays the unchecked copy and paste culture of modern corporate journalism.

See the feature at :  http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4165472,00.html

m hor


POLICE INTELIGENCE

14.04.2001 03:13

ZIPPPY bong BOng VonG&&&& ***** nip sew wavvvvvv
CHOLCALATE CAKE !!! MEET WHEN COW HITS MOON!!!


SAVE STANTON MOORE!!!

ROB NASH
mail e-mail: robnash@hotmail.com
- Homepage: http://pages.zoom.co.uk/~nineladies


RTS and terrorism article from Red Pepper

18.04.2001 12:45

In the past quite a few articles on anti-globalisation style demos have alluded to far right connections.

Here's something similar but far more proactive:

Has Ireland's Dirty War come to London?

Arthur Nelsen says the Irish dirty war appears to be coming home to the streets of London, in the run-up to implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Act on 19 February.

January 2001

Accusations are being raised of operations by security services to tar the anti-capitalist group Reclaim The Streets (RTS) with a "terrorism" brush,and soften the ground for use of the act against them. In a grave development, activists also allege police collusion with fascists who marched under an Ulster Defence Association banner, to intimidate and threaten arrested protestors.
The story begins with a meeting held by supporters of the Real IRA in an upstairs room at the Cock Tavern pub in Euston on 25 November. The venue had been used by RTS for weekly meetings since 1999. In the days leading up to the gathering, four emails were reportedly sent to the RTS "allsorts" address requesting that the function be publicised on the RTS mailing list. Republican groups had never made such an approach before.

Billed as a "function in aid of republican prisoners and their dependants", the meeting was largely organised by the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, the political wing of the Real IRA whose Omagh bomb killed 29 civilians.

However, details of the function were leaked to families of the Omagh bomb victims, who staged a high-profile demonstration outside the meeting, grabbing the next days' headlines. "Bomb families besiege terror group in pub," splashed the Sunday Times. The story noted that the Tavern, had "played host not only to Irish republican groups but to members of Reclaim The Streets, which organised the last two anti-capitalist demonstrations in London".

Later that day, the National Front announced they would begin weekly protests to close the Cock Tavern on 28 November, the evening of RTS' next meeting. That night, RTS switched their venue but many of their activists staged a counter-demonstration, with other anti-fascists. The NF protest involved 12 fascists marching to the pub under the banner of the Loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association, with an 80-strong police escort. Inevitably, scuffles between the two demonstrations broke out when the NF reached the pub and seven anti-fascists were arrested.

"Roland" was one of them.

"The police insisted on taking my photo and repeatedly asked for my address," he told me. "They said I wasn't on the electoral register but when I tried to give them my postcode, they wouldn't write it down. I thought that was a bit strange so I gave them my full name, as I wanted to get bail. Eventually, I was charged with affray. Three days later, on the day of my court appearance, I got a postcard claiming to be from a fascist threatening violence. It didn't have a postcode on it but it was addressed using my full name. I've never received anything like it before."

The message, which had a south London postmark, read: "Dear Roland, nice to have made your acquaintance at Euston on the 28th. Look forward to meeting under different circumstances. Not so fucking clever are you now, cunt? From the most vicious fascist you'll ever meet in the dark. Hail victory!"

At least two other people arrested on the night received the same postcard in the days following the demonstration. As Roland put it: "They were exactly the details I gave the police. How else could they have got them?"

"It looks like police collusion with fascists," one RTS activist said. "Without a doubt, some sections of the state would like to tar RTS with the terrorist brush before the Anti-Terrorism Act becomes law. They are incompetent in dealing with us on demonstrations and so they are trying to direct public anger against us by linking us with terrorist groups."

The new Anti-Terrorism Act redefines terrorism as the use or threat of political "action" to influence the government or public. Such action could include: serious violence against a person; serious damage to property; seriously endangering a person's life, or serious disruption to an electronic system.

It also creates a "proscribed groups" blacklist which, depending on how its enforced, could cover anti-GMO protestors, animal rights activists, hackers and anti-capitalist groups such as Reclaim the Streets.

The Sunday Times story of 25 November reported calls for the 32 County group to be proscribed under the Act, adding that "Britain's policing and intelligence agencies are engaged in a secret conflict with up to 140 groups" who could be covered by it.

In December 1999, the newspaper published a widely-ridiculed claim that US anarchists linked to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski were mobilising for the RTS Mayday 2000 protest. It also hounded Carmen Poretta, a witness to the 1987 execution of an active IRA unit in Gibraltar and more recently, lost a libel case against the journalist Sean McPhilemy over his 1990 programme about RUC collusion with Loyalist death squads.

Russell Miller, a legal expert and director of Defendants Information Services said: "The Sunday Times has a long and suspect history in this regard. As the McPhilemy and Poretta cases proved, it often seems all too willing to circulate disinformation received from 'security sources'."

State involvement in the goings-on at the Cock Tavern is of course unproven, but the results of the imbroglio are clear. Reclaim The Streets has been dislodged from its weekly meeting place, publicly associated with terrorists, and its supporters have been targeted by paramilitary thugs. With Ireland relatively peaceful and the Berlin Wall now gone, activists fear that the security services are turning their attention closer to home, to justify their continued lavish funding.

-
- Homepage: http://www.redpepper.org.uk


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