Just got in from the Brighton demo.

500-1000 people blocked off many busy junctions in the centre of brighton, starting with the seafront outside the pier (where the police charged the crowd using batons and pepper spray).

It seems the police weren't quite sure what to do, as every time we were blocked by riot police we stood and shouted for a while, blocking the road, then doubled back and took a another road junction. This carried on for a couple of hours, moving from one juction to the next all over brighton town centre.

The crowd was a real mixture, many students from Sussex and Brighton Uniersities as well as lots of local people including families, and there was a real noisy carnival atmosphere with drumming, singing and chanting all evening.

As I left we were back at the pier blocking the seafront again (about 20:30) and there were more van loads police in riot gear arriving. I saw one person get arrested, as he was standing in front of a riot van blocking it's way.

Just got in from the Brighton demo.

500-1000 people blocked off many busy junctions in the centre of brighton, starting with the seafront outside the pier (where the police charged the crowd using batons and pepper spray).

It seems the police weren't quite sure what to do, as every time we were blocked by riot police we stood and shouted for a while, blocking the road, then doubled back and took a another road junction. This carried on for a couple of hours, moving from one juction to the next all over brighton town centre.

The crowd was a real mixture, many students from Sussex and Brighton Uniersities as well as lots of local people including families, and there was a real noisy carnival atmosphere with drumming, singing and chanting all evening.

As I left we were back at the pier blocking the seafront again (about 20:30) and there were more van loads police in riot gear arriving. I saw one person get arrested, as he was standing in front of a riot van blocking it's way.

Yeah i just got back from brighton. The police were attacking people who were just sitting down they used pepper spray on someone i was with, without warning him or anything. And I was on Pig kneeing someone in the back as he dragged another protester off the road. But we soon found gaps in their lines and kept them on the run for a few hours. There were around 20 riot vans following us. I heard later that around 35-40 poeple were arrested. But I saw no violence from the protesters just the police.

fight the true threat to world peace : USA! lets disarm this rouge nation, lets stop international state terrorism practised by this country! lets re educate all the patriots brainwashed by Bush and his fascist regime!!!!

Mainstream media coverage on www.thisisbrighton.co.uk

As this was only the second protest i've attended (the 1st being 28th sept in london) I was pretty shocked when the police moved in on the roundabout aroud 18:10, they were literally throwing people out of their way - I got grabbed and thrown on the floor without warning, and i hit my head on the road pretty hard - its still aching.

Still, by the sounds of things I got off lightly. On top of the aggressive policing i noticed that several police had turned their shoulder numbers inside out so they could not be read. When we asked one about this he was pretty hostile and refused to say whether it was policy - another winked and said 'the wind blew it'

There was also a lot of agression towards those with cameras . . .

The police were totally out of order (as usual), but i was surprised how quickly they lost the plot! They were using pepper spray on people sitting in the road and hitting people with batons.
But i really don't they could cope with it, the crowd were brilliant and were not intimidated by the police tactics. My only criticism is that sometimes the crowd did not move quick enough, but i guess that'just crowd dynamics for you.
The article in the Argus was pretty good, one of their photographers got sprayed with pepper spray!

i was well surprised by the quality of the demonstrating. Once everybody got into it, it became clear that the crowd could outmanoevre the coppers easily, and consequently found themselves controlling the situation. Any attempt at leadership was totally ignored, and the crowd communicated and acted effectively without any real organisational structure or hierarchy. More critical junctions could have been held for longer than they were, and hanging around until numbers dwindled enough for everyone left to get section sixtied was perhaps unnecesary, but on the whole i reckon it was People 4 Coppers 0. Nice.

I've just been to an anti war demo in brighton it was fucking mad. There were about 4-500 of us and we decided to block a road we all sat down chanting and singing and dancing there was kind of a party mood in the air...

...Untill the fucking police got in the act! We were all sitting down peacefully and then a load of cops start dragging people off so we all chained arms so we couldn't be moved and they started pepper spraying people and beating them back with batons. We found a hole in police lines so we went a run and then just ran round the city being chased by 20 riot vans. Every time they cut us off we found another way out and kept them on the run. They kept trying to box us in but weren't very successful untill near the end when they trapped about 30 people.

It was maddness I couldn't believe what violent cunts the police were and how aggressive they were against peaceful protesters what bastards. Well hopefull all this achieved something, at least we made our point.

I came across the demonstration by surprise. Having been out of the country for a while and only gotten back the day before I apparently missed a bit.
I was walking back from work and had decided to stroll around town a bit to catch some fresh air and suck into the spirit of the town and the people again. By the time I came near my place, I noticed a large build up of police cars in the area and decided to walk into the direction where the action seemed to be. Only then realizing what was going on.

I joined the demonstration for a bit, but as an outsider, not having been involved in the activities of the day, it came accros quite pointless to me. The road was being blocked, but from where I was standing at least, without a clear motivation for- or point to it. Like I said, this probably/hopefully had to do with me joining the demonstration in a rather late state (about 19:45).
What might be an idea for next time though is to bring more flyers/pampleths as I am sure there were more people coming late who were equally lost, and possibly also less informed and convinced of the need of all of us to oppose this upcoming war.
Otherwise it just looks like a power thing from our side to people, showing of our ability to block a random road in a random town and/or annoying the cops a bit.... That might all be fun in a way, but clearly not the main goal. So a bit more information towards those who might not yet be convinced or fellow anarchists/leftists...?

I agree with the people who said the demonstrators seemed to control the situation though as all the cops I saw were clearly confused and unsure what to do. Them being bastards doesn't surprise me though as I am sure it does nobody else. That's what they're trained for.