I was one of the protestors escorted out of the strand cordon last night. We were let out of the cordon on the condition that we went out one by one and removed hats glasses, hoods etc. Whilst this may or may not be a legal action by the police (i.e., there are legal provisions for this), the fact that we were then joined by two policemen who held our arms down whilst we were paraded past a video camera complete with bright spotlights is not - to my knowlege- something that the police can do legally. It seems to me that they were braking the law here. Any legal experts out there?

Big Brother is not only watching you, he is manhandling you, infringing your privacy, civil rights and liberty.

It seems that we do not use the courts enough to bring private prosecutions against the police. This is because the organisaition is not there to collect evidence at the scene.

i was one of those penned in as well. alongside various protesters and tourists, one of whom had just stepped out of easyeverything and then was trapped with the rest of us. the police announcements had clearly been to disperse by 7.05 and ridiculous as they were my friend and i weren't up to spending the night in jail so we were starting to make our move at about 6.30. then before we knew it we were enclosed, the police were pushing and spitting and shouting 'fuck off' at my friend as he tried to leave, and we found ourselves standing in front of the yellow jackets for the next 3 hours. they persistently ignored any questions, people needing to pee, etc. after a while the riot police replaced the yellows. they tried to act 'friendly' by making a lot of saddam hussein jokes. the only explanation we were ever given for what was happening was to 'protect us from the dangerous sections of the protesters' we wanted to leave too much to point out how insane that sounded. 'no you are bullying and intimidating everyone into thinking they should never ever again dare to go out onto the streets for any 'activist' reason - even if you're not one of them, if the activists are out then you make sure you're not'
after a long time we were finally escorted out one by one like criminals, photographed and told we would be arrested if we entered the trafalgar sq. area again. i asked about the tourists who seemed to be free to roam freely and was gien the vague answer of 'some of them live here'
police state or police state?
(oh and did anyone notice the american and british flags entertwined on the riot police's black jackets?)

I was also in the cordon in trafalgar on Mayday, and the behaviour of the police was in clear violation of my rights. The group of us there were almost all just wanting to dance and enjoy the day, this 'element' which the police wanted to control were not there. Now I'm as spikey as the next guy and don't personally have a problem with law breaking, but when you've got DJ Hype on the speakers and the Samba band with you then it is time to dance and have a good time. I was one of a few who pushed out of the group at Lockheed Martin and I was able to join the march which went to Parliament, and I have justified my actions to my pacifist friends who do not join Mayday because they are strictly opposed to any violence. If I hadn't pushed my way through a police line then I would have been trapped, imprisoned for no reason by the police. All I did was push a few people who were attempting to trap me, they are the ones carrying big metal poles to hit people with. The only violence I saw on thursday was when the police tried to stop us marching or dancing, I even saw a drummer being beaten to the ground by a policeman, what was his crime?

not only I and my mates were escorted for being potentially very dangerous (!!!??) but a police man told me "take less drugs!!!"....are they now equipted with an instant "external" chemical test or else?