Riot-Folks Getting Fucked With in England... [Friday, July 1st, 2005]

IMPORTANT: If you put your email address down on the Riot-Folk email list at any point during our European trip, the cops now have it. We feel like total shit for this and the guilt is causing us lots of arguments and stress. These addresses we're in a notebook that the cops stole from us and we are attempting to go through the legal bullshit to get it back. Unfortunately, the cops have it and there is absolutely no doubt that they are taking the names down from it. This is one of many tactics that government(s) are using right now to fuck with us and all of you.

So we were detained today at Victoria Station in London by the London Police as we tried to get on our bus. 2 cops stopped us and ran passports, claiming they needed to check our immigration status and make sure we weren't planning trouble in Scotland. They gave the usual story about how they have the right to "keep people safe", as though we we're en route to some gathering of how to rip off poor people (which we are, except that we are protesting it, not participating in it, like a few people I could mention).

As our ID's were checked, we noticed 3 other cops approaching us, one with a large camera. Turns out these are the same bored and underpaid men that stole Evan's notebook yesterday and detained everyone they could leaving the Institute of Autonomy (a pre-Scotland convergence center in London). The cops literally stole the notebook through physical assault from the person who was holding it and used the itinerary inside of it to find us at our bus.

So 2 of us we're cleared but Evan and Mark were questioned about our travels here and Evan had to fill some shit out to try to get his stolen notebook back from the cops. There has been a lot of photographing of us and others and intelligence gathering going on in the last few days and we anticipate more of these fear-tactics as we approach Scotland.

We are writing this because we are concerned for our safety as far as illegal detainments go in times like these and we want to make public our movements so that if anything happens, lots of people know the truth. We are traveling through Europe, playing music that matters, learning from the people we meet, and voicing our opposition to a global problem. Our next stop is Nottingham tonight, Leeds tomorrow, and Glasgow the next day.

If George Bush and these 7 other shitheads can come here and plan out the further destruction of the planet, we can come here to stand up against them and promote the ideas of resistance.


For those who don't know, the G8 (Group of Eight) are the heads of the 7 richest countries in the world, plus Russia. These power-mongers meet each year in an official setting to map out how they will continue to fuck everyone over to continue being rich, powerful people. They have been cornered several times in recent years by hundreds of thousands of people who are fed up with their corporate bullshit.

From July 4-8, they will be kicking back at the Gleneagles Resort in Perth, Scotland. Gleneagles is owned by Diageo, which also owns Guiness, Smirnoff, and other brand name alcoholic drinks. Please see  http://www.dissent.org.uk or  http://www.indymedia.uk for more info.