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.

Stopped by police for talking

Anonymous | 07.06.2011 01:32 | Repression | Terror War

Today the police hit a new personal low for petty behaviour. Unfortunately I am all too use to dealing with the polic-y enforcers, it has become a somewhat regular pastime. In this incident though new depths were plumbed, I was stopped as you can see on the slip above for ‘Talking to numerous people’. It makes me wonder what sort of country we now live in where one can be stopped for talking to old friends. Let me clarify the point here, none of them had criminal pasts, none of them were engaged in criminal activity, quite the opposite they were ordinary Muslims attending a peaceful rally. There were two groups democratically voicing their discontent at American drone policy, a policy that murders innocents on a daily basis.



So how many is ‘numerous’ what is that golden limit that should not… nay cannot be crossed, well in my case it was about five people I spoke to there. Now I know this is more than enough to plan a conspiracy with, and to be fair to PC Plod we did all have beards. I also understand that if you have 400 officers or so waiting around they may become bored and even a little jealous of these riveting chats. Maybe they just wanted to debate the geo-political situation of Pakistan but they felt to do this they needed to instigate a stop and search under the PACE legislation.
It seems I’m getting ahead of myself, how was this criminal waste of time initiated? After I left the demo which the Cageprisoners team were invited to by Lord Nazir Ahmad. I was accosted while getting my post rally coffee, it also seems worth mentioning that I was with the board member and another intern at the time. The board member is a lawyer, and looks it too, while the other intern is a non-Muslim American. So as we (the odd three) entered and started ordering our lattes like good Londoners; three officers followed us in and asked me to accompany them outside.
Upon exiting I was asked for my name, which I duly refused to give, I was informed that I had been observed talking to numerous people. Somewhat confused I inquired as to if this was a crime, thankfully I was informed it was not. Now if you’ve been paying regular attention to the Cageprisoner’s website you will have read an article on know your rights  http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/1076-know-your-rights-what-to-do-when-mi5-comes-knocking-for-you . Alhamdulillah I did read this section thus I asked the officer what section I was being held under, to which he replied that I was not being held under any section, this was just a chat. At this point I decided I’d had enough of talking to the gentleman and my beverage was in all likelihood ready so I told the Old Bill I’d be off now… They seemed to have a different plan and proceeded to tell me my headphones were suspicious and that I was now being held under PACE for a stop and search...oh the JOY. Never fear though because like a knight in a shining suit the afore mentioned board member piped up telling Her majesty’s constables that he was my lawyer, I thought we had solicitors here but what do I know. Clearly somewhat put aback by the fact that we both knew the law better than they did, the law enforcement bully boys proceeded to quickly carry out the search of my person in front of all the onlookers, well it wouldn’t be a proper day trip if the tourists didn’t see at least one minority abused. After a quick bout of form filling and the officer incorrectly guessing my age (No I didn’t lie to them) we were all free to go on our merry way. The form, as you can see above, stated:

“Seen on looking at demonstration at Parliament. Walked away with another male. Spoken to as we had seen him speaking to numerous people.”

The point for me here is not that I had my time wasted or that I was stopped blatantly because of my religion nor that maybe they knew who I was from the start and just wanted to harass me. No, while all this was going on a war criminal drove right by and into the houses of parliament and no one cared.

Anonymous
- Homepage: http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/blog/item/1614-stopped-by-police-for-talking

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

Oh no

07.06.2011 05:32

"...to be fair to PC Plod we did all have beards"

You've only got yourself to blame then. A well-shaved society is a well-run society. Look at the Chinese. No, hang on...

A non-beardy


Ridiculous...

07.06.2011 10:46

Not to make light of such ridiculous oppression but this is definitely a contender for schnews crap arrest of the week...  http://www.schnews.org.uk

Um


Sue em

08.06.2011 23:00

Well he wasnt actually arrested and this isnt so very unusual. However the reasons given for the stop and search are so ridiculous that he should consider sueing the cops.

Sam


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