Video Released of Edinburgh Uncut Arrests.
Video of Edinburgh Uncut’s protest at Bhs on May 28, during which two women were arrested and both charged with Breach of the Peace, one also with “Resisting Arrest”, has today been released by the group. Yesterday, four days after the protest, a fourth activist was arrested at his home and also charged with Breach of the Peace.
Edinburgh Uncut said:
Breach of the Peace requires conduct severe enough to cause alarm to ordinary people and threaten serious disturbance to the community. It should be conduct that is genuinely alarming and disturbing, in its context, to any reasonable person. It is clear that something substantially greater than mere irritation is involved.
However, members of the public were not alarmed or distressed by our presence inside the store, as can be seen in the video.
The video also shows the inspector in charge of the scene telling the activists that their banner was a health and safety risk, as someone could trip over it, despite it being held above the ground and there being no obvious sign of danger to any passers by.
The person saying “that’s assault” was one of the protesters and it was in response to the police pushing people.
The arrests at the end were utterly bizarre! They seemed to be fairly happy to have you in the shop and then move you outside, but then all of a sudden they start pushing you out of the shop, even though you were leaving, and then arresting people for nothing obvious. I heard “assault” – was that the police claiming that one of the girls arrested assaulted a police officer?
My main reason for posting a comment is that I think you should send this footage to the BBC and possibly the justice minister Kenny MacAskill. Physically pushing the protesters out of the shop and then to ground to arrest them is unacceptable (anyone remember other protests where that kind of thing got out of control and people died…). But secondly, what ever happened to our right to peaceful protest? Are we no longer allowed to protest. Seriously consider sending this to certain media groups if nothing else! You were peaceful (as far as I can see from this footage), and the police were exactly the opposite. I’m ashamed of Edinburgh police now – who I thought were generally a good bunch!
Ridiculous. At least you’ll get to clarify in court what Breach of the Peace actually is – which will mean the police can’t do this in future.