By IANS,
London : Senior officers policing last month’s mass protest march in London focused too heavily on threatening to ‘kettle’ demonstrators, according to civil rights group, Liberty.
Liberty, which had 120 observers at the march, organized by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) against government cuts, said the controversial tactic was ‘under near constant consideration’ when potential trouble emerged.
‘The possibility of mass containment of peaceful protesters has undoubtedly had a chilling effect on many people’s rights to freedom of expression and assembly,’it said in a report published Monday.
In a landmark judgement last week, the High Court in London ruled that the Metropolitan police broke the law in the way they kettled protesters at the G20 demonstrations in 2009.
‘The police may only take such preventive action as a last resort catering for situations about to descend into violence,’ said the court, which heard that officers used punches to the face, slaps and shields against demonstrators who police chiefs accept had nothing to do with violence at the protest.
Students have also launched legal action against the police for being “illegally imprisoned” when kettled for hours without food, water and sanitation in freezing weather during protests outside parliament in December against the government plans to treble university fee to £9,000 a year.
In its report on the biggest demonstrations since the 2003 Iraq war, Liberty criticised Scotland Yard’s special operations room, where it had two observers, saying there was a continual expectation that a containment would be imposed at some point, and it seemed to be a question of “more ‘when’ than ‘if’.’
The tactics appear “seriously to undermine the relationship of trust and confidence between peaceful protesters and the police’ and was widely anticipated by the marchers to the advantage of the police, it said.
‘The preoccupation with kettling and political pressure for knee-jerk public order powers continue to threaten the right to peaceful dissent in the oldest unbroken democracy,’ said Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti.
The police have also face criticism for the mass arrests carried out against anti-tax avoidance campaigners, who targeted high street stores and banks in a parallel protest, which was not monitored by observers.
Adam Ramsay, a campaigner with UK Uncut who was detained for more than 20 hours, said the arrests, which included 145 charged with trespass for occupying Fortnum and Mason luxury food store, might have been politically motivated or to facilitate information gathering on the group.
‘At the time the chief inspector at Fortnum and Mason effectively told us there we had committed no criminal damage – that we were all ‘non-violent’ and ‘sensible’. But moments later we were all arrested for criminal damage – a charge later dropped.” Ramsay said.