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.

School students strike and direct action in Edinburgh

ab | 19.03.2003 19:52

The school students strike and anti-war protest in Edinburgh was great today.
Again the schools students took the iniative and blew everybody away with their enthusiasm, optimism and their bravery to disobey the expectations of society with their battling creativity.
If the bombing starts tonight, there will be a gathering at 12 noon at Parliament Square in Edinburgh. Also another protest has been called for 5pm the same day the war actually starts.
At least one person has been arrested, but promised to let go tonight- you can ring up the police station and check:
telno. 0131 6625000, St. Leonards police station.

The school students strike and anti-war protest in Edinburgh was great today.

Again the schools students took the iniative and blew everybody away with their enthusiasm, optimism and their bravery to disobey the expectations of society with their battling creativity.

I joined the protest being late as usual, when the amazing crowd of at least 1000 people came down the mount, and were stopped marching onto Princes Street by the police, although all the buses and other traffic was already regulated and stopped for this main shopping centre road.
I was later told by an eye witness that police has also beaten up people when they clashed over accessing Princes Street.
The police closed the gates and restricted everybody, including journalists from accessing the gardens, as well as they did not let protesters out for quite a while.
There were many school students on strike, and in the gardens when the pupils were upset with being restricted access, they hold a POPULAR ASSEMBLY, deciding unisono to go to Princes Street whatsoever.-
The police has already changed their minds and let people pass again to the "mass die-in" with Mark Thomas and the usual SSP speakers, who continously tried to hijack the protest for their own party-agenda.
However, the teenagers were determined to make their own voices rise up, seldom has a protest before been so uplifting and refreshing as this one, rarely so optimistic, despite being clear to everybody that war is hardly to stop.
Unlike other commercial journalists reporting, it is to object the statement that the "kids were mislead", most of the pupils had a clear and distinctive, radical opinion and are obviously determined to make their voices heard despite of all the threads of suspension and other punishment declared to them by teachers, who were often pressured by police and others officials to pass the pressure onto the school students.
Fear and insecurity about their upcoming exams is not deterring these brave and self-confident generation from expressing their beliefs, that "war is wrong", that "there must be other solutions than violence" and that the opposition to war is a priority, as is to learn and to express democracy by taking to the streets, rather than for an individual and its elite to lead a country to war, when two thirds of its inhabitants are against it.

This clear injustice and inconsequense, as are the non-convincing arguments and lies of the politicians, is obvious and upsetting to everybody, but as usual, the adults seem to have mostly resignated, withdrawn and given-up, fighting and tiring of their every day jobs in need of survival.

After the "Die-In" and many more speaches, the demonstration took in front, or better at the back of the Scottish parliament, trying to drum out politicians, who were to be hiding inside or out for lunch at the front door. Again there was a rather boring speech or even more than one- who cares, trying to impress the future generation to lure them to the SSP, include many juvenile papersellers of various socialist frontgroup publications.


There was at least one arrest, possible more, of grown-ups.
There were some clashes in between kids, journalists and police, but the police let them go after taking names.

One clash included BBC journalist Ian Cowrie, who parked his unlocked car in the protest and got upset and laid hands on one teenager, whom he arrested and physically restraint, claiming to have damaged his car.
(pictures of this hopefully coming in soon).

Also, when the arrest was made at Waverly Station, this was made quite violent, with the protesters face forced into the pavement by police.

The protesters took to the US consulte, which was well fenced off, but the teenages discovered a small opening of steps through the private garden, in which the hedges were trimmed and sneaked through to be only a few metres and one fence and policeline away from the US consulate. Again the SSP speakers tried to hijack the protest, but thanks to drummers and the creativity of the kids, the teenagers staged a noisefull protest in front of the American embassy, surely the closest a protest has got near to in a while.
Impressive was not only the creativity of the pupils but also their tolerance towards each other and various ways of expressing opposition to the war against Iraq, the politicians had their speeches, but the school students had their own preferences and priorities, which they consequently followed.

After the protest at the US consulate, the demonstration marched again towards th Scottish parliament, and I have to say, the school students are clearly untirable, while my feet were already aching, they still kept going enthusiastically with their rebelling spirit and urging wishes for a better society than this one keeping them going.

At the parliament later this afternoon, two lines of policemen hemmed people in , then a sit-down happened on the mound for about 20 minutes, the police grapped Mick Napier, and the school students hold on to him, but the police official convinced the others and Mick Napier to take him aside to have a word with him in private.

Mick Napier then tried to disperse the crowd, probably as he was told, but the crowd still wanted to know what is happening with the arrested, and the crowd shouted "Free Bill S.!" and wanted to demonstrate to the front of the police station in solidarity of the arrested, but Mick Napier and the police official promised that the arrested will be free tonight, however, a small group of protesters went to the police station to support the arrested and will check if the promise is kept.
But the latest news at 6 pm say that he is still detained.

The protester is currently held in the police station telno. 0131 6625000, St. Leonards police station.
If you ring the number to ask when they will be released, that would be helping them a lot.


If the bombing starts tonight, there will be a gathering at 12 noon at Parliament Square in Edinburgh.
Also another protest has been called for 5pm the same day the war actually starts.

ab

Comments

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