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Pictures from Edinburgh locals attacking Police around 9:30pm

imc Eire | 05.07.2005 00:35

More pictures and a full report at the days events at the link below (Indymedia Éire site)

Locals facing up to cops in laneway
Locals facing up to cops in laneway

Shoving the dumpster at Police lines
Shoving the dumpster at Police lines

CIRCA Clowns trying to stop people throwing stuff at Police
CIRCA Clowns trying to stop people throwing stuff at Police

People dumping a bin on the riot police
People dumping a bin on the riot police


....So I came out of the discussion with the intention of heading back to Muirhouse, and looked east, back up Princes St. A row of yellow jackets in the distance and police lights. This was 8pm. There arent -still- people coralled in from earlier on, are there? I cycled up and it was hard to find out what was happening. There seemed to be no 'centre' of activity, and there were certainly no 'activists' left at this point. I cycled around a long way to get to the other side of the police line, where 4 or 5 people were being detained with plastic handcuffs in front of a boarded up mobile phone shop. They were definitely not pink, black, clown, or any other block. Just ordinary folk. An onlooker said they were being arrested for refusing to move on when ordered by a Police officer, but I cannot confirm that.

They were put into vans, with a chorus of boos and hisses from the crowd, chanting to let them go. Next thing a glass bottle hit the line, racking up the tension. The cops were getting nervous, and the crowd were telling them to fuck off (because most of the riot cops were English rather than local Police, it seemed). The cops jumped into the crowd and snatched a teenage girl, provoking more anger and the occasional missile from the crowd. A bagpiper blowing out traditional tunes seemed to be stirring the Scots into a bit of an anti-establishment fervour. It seemed as if this crowd were mostly just turned up after they saw what was happening on the news, and joined in the activities themselves.

What happened next was bizarre and unprecedented. A group of about a dozen riot cops were left in a laneway while the others had been taken away in vans. Possibly they were just waiting around for an empty van to come and pick them up. Several people saw them down the lane isolated, and the next thing they were being stoned and bottled by people steaming up the laneway. Bottles were fired at them from close range, a dumpster was pushed straight at the line of shields, and a traffic cone and a bin were thrown at them when they charged their way back to the junction of the street.

Four or five of the Clown Army showed up at this point, trying to stop people throwing stuff at the cops, and making faces and generally being silly right in front of the Police. One female clown was nearly hit in the head with the big traffic cone, and their attempts to calm the situation didnt really work at all, so they left the situation fairly quickly. Within a minute a huge amount of Police vans arrived into the area with sirens squealing, pouring out more padded riot units. This sent the crowd scattering. They also brought out the dog unit, forcing people away from the laneway, threatening to use the dogs on people that did not back off.

Eventually the Police got all their Officers back into vans, and retreated out of the area rapidly. The crowd cheered and was chanting Anti-G8 slogans as well as "Whose streets? Our streets!" The McDonalds and the Topshop right in the thick of all this survived without a scratch though. After a while people filtered off, it was getting late and dark. I think in this situation just the sight of the Police on the street itself was drawing people toward them and getting their blood up, as soon as they withdrew completely the tension vanished...

More pix & full report at  http://www.indymedia.ie

imc Eire
- Homepage: http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70649

Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

Official Denouncement

05.07.2005 02:23

The Counter Insurgent Recuperative Clown Activists (CIRCA) hearby denounce any Edinburgh residents who choose to resist the riot police occupation of their city.

Class peace not class war!
Placate the G8!
Oppose anti-capitalist resistance and direct action at all costs!

Only activists can manage-down revolt. We must prevent working class people from liberating themselves, because then we would have no role to play.

In the absence of solidarity,
Counter Insurgent Recuperative Clown Activists (CIRCA)
July 5, 2005

Counter Insurgent Recuperative Clown Activists


sad clowns

05.07.2005 08:30


I'm not with you folks in edimburgh because i'm on parole, chez moi, but I just want to give my impression about the Clow Army as I can understand from the internet reports.

It's a good idea if it helps to build autonomous situations.

BUT It's a shame to see clowns hugging and smiling with a cop in riot gear (or without!). Too many have died, been brutalized by police in the UK and elsewhere to let us joke with them. We have just to fight them with all means necessary.

And more, the clown army is pathetic in trying to seem "spontaneous" and after trying to co-opt and lead all the situations.

Go ahead fighting, with smile or petrolbombs, as you like, but go on, don't be slaves of the show....

fuck the queen!

fire to the g8!

emiliano


the locals

05.07.2005 08:56

good to see the locals getting involved - they really seem to hate the Metropolitan polic though!
In Glasgow at the noborder action, too, locals at the bus stop tried to intervene when a woman seemed to be threatened with arrest, beaten and her arm twisted - one man trying to free her and the Met polic trying to intimidate him. First the man shouted:
"let her go!" and then to the Met police "I am from Glasgow, wher the fuck ar you from!" at that point the Met police nearly wanted to arrest him but he jumped out of their reach!

In total, whilst the local polic semed to be mostly calm, the met police is running totally off gear. Whilst in Glasgow it seemed the local police was fairly relaxed (at least it is not "Rangers vs. Celti"c!) and pretty used to the standard street party like spontaneous atmosphere, and even enjoying the carnival and the noborder tourist tour, the met police quite often escalated the situation, were generalyl too nervous, and causing trouble by trying to intervene a lot and filming aggressively.
it was not clear how the commanding structure worked at all within the seperate several police units.

Not a good idea to bring them here, really, now that Scotland has its own parliamnt (who the fuck has ever thought about building a fence around it - took long enough for Scotland to feel at least at little bit more independent of Westminster) the Metropolitian Police is perceivd by many locals as imperialist intruders, who do seem overreacting, oppressive and imperialistic.

Many Scots hav a nationalistic pride in Scotland - they seem to resist more because of this rather than any ideology, but of course, many more are poor than in the South of Britain, and many make the links between all the main resources shifted to London and they being poor in the North, and also feel like they have waited long enough.

The yellow press and mainstream media has also contributed to this by exaggerating the anarchist protests!

ab


We are all locals

05.07.2005 17:27

Its said that some fuckwits like Bob "support my mates' record sales" Waldorf insist that selling records and SMS ticket schemes are the only legitimate forms of protest. Perhaps its time to consider never buying another ****ing licensed CD again to silence these poxy wannabe musicians. Boomtown Rats were always ****.

As for the police, if you can trap small groups of them in a park or sidestreet, you should meter out exactly what justice you'd expect to receive if they had it their way around. They have no right to impose any restrictions on protest, they have no rights at all and there is no law.

Heave Ho! Down with the G8! All of Edinburgh march on the Emporer's bolt hole. Eight of the most evil men on Earth within a few miles of you! Act! Resist! Reclaim the politics.

Steve McQueen


No politics

06.07.2005 00:30

Just to dampen any great illusions about local working classes joining with global protesters to protest against a system of one type or another:
Virtually everyone here in Edinburgh who has lived here for any amount of time agrees that the locals in the picture are the type who just enjoy smashing things up in general. Not much of a political agenda there. Then again, that might make them brothers in spirit with some of the protesters I have seen...

Tobi (writing from Forest... very quiet... all G8 folk seem to be catching up on sleep to be fit for Gleneagles)

Tobi


clowning

14.07.2005 14:18

It is not about placating the G8, but ridiculing the G8, it is realising that to reduce the direct action movement to a battle with the police is futile, they have all the weapons, instead it seeks to undermine authority, and to expose it as the farce that it is. It does not reject direct action (Army Careers office occupied by Clowns, Labour party office occupied by clowns, two petrol stations shut down by clown action{see splish splash splosh on indy media}).
Look again through the pictures of clown actions, how ridiculous and funny the police look in their tactics, e.g. Clowns being searched under section 60 pulling out loads of silly string, and random silly objects that they demand are listed down on a search receipts. For me it is a refreshing way of using humour, imagination and fun to resist, and coming from a background of being a burnt-out activist, it has rekindled my passion to resist.

L

L


more clowning

14.07.2005 14:28

i forgot to add the circa website in the last comment:

www.clownarmy.org

L


Denouncement by Circa

10.10.2005 19:41

The denouncement by Circa is simply their way of recreating the system they purport to denounce. If you want to get active, get active.

Edinburgh local


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