Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Demo Against the Grand National and other AR activities

eva g | 06.04.2009 20:06 | Animal Liberation

On Saturday 4th April Nottingham Animal Rights had a busy day demonstrating against the grand national (complete with police presence), doing a free vegan food givaway at the sumac centre and hosting people's kitchen - cooking a three course meal for £3 - (also at sumac).

Outside William Hill
Outside William Hill


The AR stall.
The AR stall.

One of the flyers handed out.
One of the flyers handed out.



Saturday was a busy day for Nottingham Animal Rights. The Day kicked off with a demonstration against the Grand National, which took place outside William Hill bookmakers in Nottingham City centre. The demonstration was well attended with positive comments from members of the public. However, we did have an amusing encounter with a council police officer (more details below).

The regular animal rights stall was also in the city centre, providing information to the public about local and national causes.

The demo and stall were followed by a free vegan food giveaway at the Sumac Centre, directed at non-vegetarians, with loads of yummy food as well as information about veganism, environmental and animal welfare issues. Food included Veggies burgers, chips, plenty of salad, lemon biscuits and banana cupcakes.

Finally, Notts AR hosted People's Kitchen (also at Sumac): a meal cooked and served by volunteers that provided 3 courses of food for £3. The menu served was: organic melba toast with tapenade and veggie pate; home made Veggies sausages with potato and quinoa hash and a vegetable medley; with a banana-split-choc-cherry cupcake for dessert!

While the demo went well, we still had (minor) difficulties with a uniformed individual (we later discovered he was a council officer) who attempted to assert the law to move us on... but didn't seem to know what the law actually was.

We were instantly led to feel that we were 'in the wrong' and the officer had sided with the manager of the shop - as he simply echoed what she had said when she aggressively told us to move (and informed us that William Hill owned the pavement).

Initially we were told that the demonstration was illegal, we weren't allowed to stand outside the shop, and that it was also illegal if we didn't give our names and addresses. When we pointed out that it was a lawful protest and, as such, we weren't compelled to give our names we were informed that 'our faces were being filmed by CCTV that was going to be burned to DVD so we'd better move further down the road'.

We were then told that 'it would be on our conscience if a pushchair or wheelchair wanted to go down the pavement but couldn't because we were blocking it'. As we were pointing out that we weren't the sort of people who'd force someone in a wheelchair into the road, a man with a pushchair came past. He went past a few of the demonstrators, but because the council officer refused to move off the pavement and let him by - the pushchair had to go onto the road to get around him! (When we were eventually left alone several pushchairs went past without having to go on the road at all, as there was more than enough room on the pavement for people to go past!)

Finally we were told that we were doing something illegal under section 5, but when one of the demonstraters asked what we were doing wrong and what section 5 was she got some very confused answers!

Two Community support officers then arrived, and the council officer had words with them about the demo. The CSOs then informed us (in front of the council officer) that everything we were doing was totally legal!

Another policeman came past later on who reiterated that the protest was lawful and told us there were now three tiers of policing: council officers, community support officers and the police.

I suppose it all goes to show that a knowledge of the law is valuable when doing a demo - as you might be told that what you're doing is illegal in order to intimidate you, even if the protest is lawful.



eva g

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech