After several hours of making public service announcements to commuters and other travellers ("We are sorry to announce the imminent arrival of George W Bush in the UK" etc), he came down at about 11am, and was arrested by British Transport Police -- who a little earlier were threatening to prosecute those admiring the action from the car park for "loitering on railway property" if they didn't leave.

So apparently it's an offence to let people know that a war criminal is coming to the country...

howdy there, i'm writing from Seattle, WA, America. And we need your help.

when we have massive protests against wars or president Bush we are instantly marginalized, bashed, discredited and sometimes flat-out ignored by the mainstream corporate media (CBS, CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, NYTimes, Washington Post, etc). We wonder if we are really making a difference. 100,000 showed up in NYC to protest the coming war with Iraq last winter or so and it was simply reported by CNN and other networks (if reported at all) that "thousands" protested. when millions around the world protested the coming war it made headlines but was downplayed and received very cynical, biased coverage.

But if America's closest ally, Britain, can raise holy hell when Bush comes to visit, that can send us a strong message. Because if he isn't welcome in Britain of all places then where? and what does that say about America? a lot. it will say we need to take a few steps back, look at ourselves and re-evaluate the aproach we take to global affairs and how we do business in the world.

I don't know if you realize this but the left and right of America are becoming increasingly polarized. for all we know there can be civil war here in a few years between the "conservatives" (neocons, Bush supporters) and liberals. we (democrat/republican) are pretty much evenly split here although about 1/2 of our voting-age population that is apathetic, on the fence or moderate when it comes to politics. only 50million voters voted for Bush; America has some 300million citizens. at least 220million are of the voting age. Republicans have what's close to a monopoly of America and they must be put back in their proper place. When we fight the Bush Republicans in America we are blown off and ignored. there is no more debate in the public media. there is no public media. just "objective" news and then some commentary shows where you have raging extremist right-wingers shouting down very moderate, clintonian, wimpy democrats. no intelligent conversation or discourse. no more in-depth critical analysis of current world affairs issues. practically no attempt at understanding the other side. it's come down to total hatred and contempt of liberal americans. our news is shit and we cannot trust it. A true liberal/ left-winger is too controversial and incompatible to be let into to the national airwaves.

Meanwhile angry, right-wing neo-fascist and very poorly educated redneck ignorami are patting themselves on the back, saying "aren't we so patriotic? as long as we believe in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and George W. Bush we will be safe from liberals and terrorists." it is absolutely appalling, I would have never dreamed that fundamentalist apocalyptic right-wing Christians would have so much power in this country. in the 21st century.

In America we cannot protest Bush without being cattle-prodded into "free speech zones", far away from where Bush or his motorcade comes by. Our police are becoming more heavily militarized. It really appears that we could be losing our freedom to assemble. If there is another terrorist attack under the Bush administration our Constitution and Bill of Rights are toast.

America is in deep trouble, we might not be able to defeat Bush by ourselves. If you raise hell against him and if you can topple Tony Blair who knows, it may be a big enough falling domino to dethrone King George Bush in 04

after 10 police started to bann bystanders from the parking side.
our hero in orange is down since 11am, he climbed down on his own will, got arrested for causing public nusiance and is in the parkside policy station.

find more pictures at:

 http://www.pp-apu.org/galery.php?verzeichnis=/StopBush

Another handful of sand in the war machine.

After more than six hours in captivity, the prisoner is well, however, not so happy. Having been interviewed, yet not formally charged, on a public nuisance offence, the police have arrested him for criminal damage to the war memorial. It appears that the memorial was the target of a remembrance day grafitti attack early this morning, at around the same time as our activist was perched bravely atop the cycle bridge. Curious. There is obviously no connection between this morning's demo against Bush and this mindless act of vandalism, yet whilst the prisoner awaits an interview on this matter, he can only be patient, if not a little disgruntled that he has been stripped of his fetching orange jumpsuit and other items of clothing in order that they be forensically analysed!

nice one looks really impressive an should hav made a good impact.
Lets show bush he really aint welcome here.
keep up the good work
el

A few people have been asking if I've been charged and when court cases might be happening and so on...so here's an update.

I was arrested for causing public nuisance for the bridge action. The police spent some time while I was up there working out what law I might be breaking and were clutching a printout with details of the law when they were booking me in at the police station. In fact the offence of public nuisance didn't actually appear on the police database so they had to put me down as "Other"! I spoke to a duty solicitor quite quickly and was interviewed by the British Transport Police. The solicitor was really good and has advised that I've got a very good case on the grounds of freedom of speach - the European Human Rights Act might be useful here.

After a couple of hours in the cell another cop appeared and informed me that I was being arrested for criminal damage to the war memorial, which had taken place the night before. This gave them the opportunity to do a "section 18" search of my home on the pretext of looking for evidence of my involvement in the graffiti incident. They eventually returned with a few leaflets from various demonstrations as potential 'evidence'. Still not prepared to let it go, they informed me that they'd be needing my clothes for forensic tests (looking for traces of spray paint), so I'm now living without my boots, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and the orange over-alls I was wearing on the bridge. They tell me it might be months before I get them back! But I did get a nice white paper suit out of the deal :-)

So, after about 7 hours they let me out without charging me with anything. I'm bailed to return on two seperate dates in December, when they will tell me if I'm being formally charged. It seems likely that the Criminal Damage thing won't go any further (which is nice, given that I didn't do it!) but we're not sure about the public nuisance. If I am charged with the latter I'll have the option of it going to Crown Court for a jury trial.