Pepper spray update: the law is just for plebs
Slightly as I expected, in asking where the Met's Defence Council authorisation to carry pepper spray or CS was, I was missing something. I assumed it would be an obscure…
Are the police carrying pepper spray illegally?
Today, at a peaceful UK Uncut demonstration at a central London branch of Boots, a number of demonstrators were attacked by police officers deploying a lachrymatory agent which was either…
Help stop a massacre in Egypt today
Image courtesty of Sarah Carr via flickr The brave people of Egypt are standing up. The oppressive government which has ruled them for years is shaking at its core as…
A year in the life of a scrounger
By Beth Tichborne **Trigger warning – neglect** Imagine that you’re put into a minibus one day and moved to a new house, in a new town where you don’t know…
Undercover cops: political or commercial?
The reaction to the news that an undercover police officer, Mark Kennedy, spent seven years infiltrating green campaign groups has been genuinely fascinating. Quite understandably there’s been the strong sense…
Protest is not a crime
Three environmental activists are due to stand trial in Edinburgh this month, charged with ‘Breach of the Peace’ after taking part in a protest at a branch of the Royal…
Ratcliffe trial: a defendant tells the tale
Soaring ambitions Being arrested and charged with a crime you didn’t commit is far less glamorous in real life than in the movies. It happened to me just before midnight,…
The Yellow and White Minstrel Show
So Jim Naughtie accidentally renamed the Culture Secretary Jeremy Cunt. And an hour after Naughtie did it so did Andrew Marr. It was the broadcasting equivalent of a motorway pile…
Climate activists stand trial
By Will McCallum As I write, twenty activists are currently standing trial in Nottingham Crown Court for conspiracy to commit aggravated trespass. The night before the plan to occupy Ratcliffe-on-Soar…
The Closing of the Net
Photo by Wysz via flickr The internet is a giant, sprawling exercise in democratic media. If you've got a connection, you have access to a greater store of human knowledge…