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More photos from Shell Occupation in Islington

Photos from the Occupation of the Shell garage on Upper Street, Saturday February 18, 2006.

On the roof

Danger! Keep out

Continued blockade

Shell hell in operation

What's going on?

All bound up...

Not everyone was supportive...

A different entrance

Everyone's now present (including the police)

The road's closed! - Oh, the police did it.

Another perspective

From a bus

A giant Shell consortium is poised to transform a remote conservation area of outstanding natural beauty into an environmental disaster zone with serious public health and safety implications. A dangerous pipeline and huge gas refinery have been approved for construction on unstable bog land, which will poison the area and endanger the residents who live just metres away. Shell plan to pump toxic waste into Broadhaven Bay, an internationally important bird, whale and dolphin habitat that also provides livelihoods to local communities through fishing. Shell's plans are backed by the Irish state, which used compulsory acquisition orders to give Shell access to local people's lands.

For more background on the situation in NW Ireland, and an explanation of teh solidarity action in North London, look at

http://www.londonrisingtide.org.uk and

http://www.corribsos.com . There is also a solidarity camp in Rossport that needs your support! Find out more at

http://struggle.ws/rsc/

For more background on shell, visit

http://www.shellfacts.com or look at

http://www.sakhalin.environment.ru/en/ for details about another troubled Shell-led project.

imcista
Homepage: http://london.indymedia.org.uk

Additions

police response

19.02.2006 23:29

police gradually built up during the action, and when the forward intelligence team and senior inspectors finally turned up things got a bit nastier.

at first, upper street traffic was diverted to avoid too much public seeing the action. later when the tsg thugs turned up and encircled the protestors, the roads were opened again.

police misused a combination of 'section 50' and 'section 60' rules to coerce names, addresses, birthdates, and full facial uncovered photographs of all those involved under threat of arrest. this combination of two acts seems like a new repressive tactic on demonstrators.

one young woman was randomly and violently arrested but was soon released without charge - she will probably sue. one young man's first dealings with a tsg officer involved the officer saying "move, you cunt" - is this modern police training?

the two men on the garage roof were arrested, held until after 2 in the morning, and released on police bail, likely to face charges of criminal damage (on the basis of putting sticky tape over the letter 's' of (s)hell.

police also trawled for help amongst local people , knocking on doors asking if they would make a complaint against the noise of the samba band. most would not, and several were offering cups of tea etc. but apparently this way police managed to scrape up five complaints in the whole of the local area.

the general view of local people seemed to be total amasement at over-policing, especially as they also complained at the lack of police response to a recent double-murder across the road.

video editing in progress - film coming soon.

rikki

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

what did the police do?

19.02.2006 19:22

Any hassle?

Not an illegal gathering of terrorists?

What did the general public think....... before the police stopped them passing?

Cheers, nice action!

Steve

Video?!?!?!

22.02.2006 14:12

How is the Video coming on?

Will it be put up soon?

TipoBarra

Thoughts of a 'Newbie'

22.02.2006 15:34

Good weather, good company and a street party atmosphere, a Samba band and an environmentally just cause that no ‘concerned’ member of the planet can ignore (the Oil Industries criminal contribution to the escalating climate changes of our planet) all the ingredients for a successful, peaceful protest.

Or so you would think!

For a few hours activists protested peacefully, blockading a 'Shell' garage forecourt, dropping a banner from the garage forecourt roof and handed out leaflets to interested members of the planet, in Upper Street, N.London. At first it appeared that the cops were happy for the protest to continue, as no one asked the protesters to leave and it was obvious that no one wanted to harass the garage workers or cause any permanent damage to property. In fact there were even activists picking up the leaflets and litter, discarded by some of the less interested members of the planet and placing it in rubbish bins (hardly disorderly behaviour)!

During the afternoon the protest had been policed by 10-15 cops in yellow jackets, as darkness fell and activists started to pack up and leave, the mood of the cops changed; all of a sudden the protectors and the Samba band were surrounded by riot cops. Activists were then told that everyone was going to have their photo taken and would be required to give their address and date of birth or be arrested, although the cops were unable to explain exactly how the protesters actions related to the relevant acts and sections they were quoting / implementing. During this ‘stand off’ three people were arrested, including the two people who had been on the roof of the forecourt garage.

First off this seems like an unreasonable behaviour and over reaction to what had been a ‘fluffy’ protest by activists, trying to highlight a serious problem (climate change).
One of the riot cops, who apparently came from County Mayo, tried desperately to argue the point that the activists had no right to protest over a campaign in Ireland unless they (the Activists) had actually been there! The cop couldn’t even understand the concept of ‘solidarity’ with the Mayo protest and the fact that if people aren’t allowed to demonstrate freely about serious concerns affecting everyone, the 'State' will remain in complete denial, as it has in the past. It was also pointed out that a majority of the natural and man made catastrophes, wars and atrocities in the world today (and the past) could have been prevented if 'Goverments' and and the people had not been in denial and listened to those with a moral conscience. Our arguments were met with the usual “I'm only doing my job” (denial or what)!

The cops obviously have the same ability to reason as they do to interpret the laws of what is rapidly becoming a repressive Police State.

'Newbie'

'Newbie'

UK Indymedia