Rights groups say Javad Rouhi, who was sentenced on charges including apostasy, was tortured so badly he can no longer speak
A 35-year-old man from a small village in northern Iran has been sentenced to death on charges including apostasy for allegedly burning a Qur’an and “insulting holy things” during the early phase of the protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Javad Rouhi has not been entitled to a lawyer of his choice in court and suffers from a severe mental illness. Human rights groups say he was tortured so terribly in a detention centre run by the feared Revolutionary Guards that he lost his ability to speak and walk, and became incontinent.
This week world leaders meet in Davos to discuss cooperation to address multiple crises, from COVID-19 and escalating inflation to slowing economic growth, debt distress and climate shocks.
Only three months earlier, finance ministers had gathered in Washington DC for the same reason. The mood was grim. The need for ambitious actions could not be greater; however, there were no agreements, evidencing the fragility of multilateralism and international cooperation.
Worse, policy makers -advised by the International Monetary Fund- are resorting to old, failed and regressive policies, such as austerity (now called “fiscal restraint” or “fiscal consolidation”), instead of much needed corporate/wealth taxation and debt reduction initiatives, to ensure an equitable recovery for all.
A recent global report alerts of the dangers of a post-pandemic wave of austerity, far more premature and severe than the one that followed the global financial crisis a decade ago. While governments started cutting public expenditures in 2021, a tsunami of budget cuts is expected in 143 countries in 2023, which will impact more than 6.7 billion people or 85% of the world population.
“Unless policymakers change course, we shouldn’t be surprised to see increasing waves of protests all over the world.”
Analysis of the austerity measures considered or already implemented by governments worldwide shows their significant negative impacts on people, harming women in particular. These austerity policies are: targeting social protection, excluding vulnerable populations in need of support by cutting programs for families, the elderly and persons with disabilities (in 120 countries); cutting or capping the public sector wage bill, this is, reducing the number and salaries of civil servants, including frontline workers like teachers and health workers (in 91 countries); eliminating subsidies (in 80 countries); privatizing public services or reforming state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in areas such as public transport, energy, water; reforming hard-earned pensions by adjusting benefits and parameters, resulting in lower incomes for retirees (in 74 countries); (6) labor flexibilization reforms (in 60 countries); reducing employers’ social security contributions, making social security unsustainable (in 47 countries); and even cutting health expenditures despite COVID-19 is not over.
Austerity and all the human suffering it causes is evitable, there are alternatives. There are at least nine financing options, available even in the poorest countries, fully endorsed by the UN and international financial institutions, from increasing progressive taxation to reducing debt. Policymakers must urgently look into these. Many countries have already implemented them.
In recent years, citizens have protested austerity all around the world. A recent study on world protests shows that nearly 1,500 protests in the period 2006-2020 were against austerity. Citizens demand better public services, social protection, jobs with decent wages, tax and fiscal justice, equitable land distribution, and better living standards, among others. Protests against pension reforms, and high food and energy prices have also been very prevalent. Recently, the jobs and cost-of-living crises have been accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in more protests despite lockdowns.
The majority of global protests against austerity and for economic justice have manifested people’s indignation at gross inequalities. The idea of the “1% versus the 99%,” that emerged a decade ago during protests over the 2008 financial crisis, has spread around the world, feeding grievances against elites and corporations manipulating public policies in their favor, while the majority of citizens continue to endure low living standards, aggravated by austerity cuts.
Let’s remember that trillions of dollars have been used to support corporations during the pandemic and to support military spending. Now people are being asked to endure austerity cuts, at a time when they are suffering a cost-of-living crisis. The 2023 meetings in Davos are being faced with new protests and demands to tax the rich.
Unless policymakers change course, we shouldn’t be surprised to see increasing waves of protests all over the world. Clashes in the street are likely to intensify if governments continue to fail to respond to people’s demands and persist in implementing harmful austerity policies. Governments need to listen to the demands of citizens that are legitimately protesting the denial of social, economic and civil rights. From jobs, public services and social security to tax and climate justice, the majority of protesters’ demands are in full accordance with United Nations proposals and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Leaders and policymakers will only generate further unrest if they fail to act on these legitimate demands.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
After the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) announced a protest opposite Downing Street, a group of NHS workers has also organised one. It’ll be just two days after the RMT’s strike, with both unions taking the fight directly to Rishi Sunak’s front door.
the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill… will force trade unions in certain industries to make sure some people work during strikes – defeating the object of industrial action entirely. The Tories call this “minimum services levels”. They’re mainly focusing on the emergency and transport services to begin with.
The law will force unions to give-in to what the government and/or employers say minimum service levels should be – depending on the sector. Business secretary Grant Shapps will be deciding what a minimum service level looks like for emergency and transport services.
So, the RMT is not having it – rallying people to go to Downing Street, where the heart of the problem lies. The union said:
we will simply not accept this attack on our fundamental and democratic rights to strike.
Now, NHS workers will also be paying Sunak a visit – this time, as an extension of their strikes.
People will march from University College London Hospital to Downing Street, where a rally will be held. Speakers include the Communication Workers Union (CWU) general secretary Dave Ward, author Michael Rosen, Labour MP Beth Winter, and grassroots NHS workers – like midwife Laura Godfrey-Isaacs.
With shocking news of 500 people dying avoidable deaths per week due to delays in emergency care, alongside heightened awareness of the government’s heinous plans to destroy the NHS – something it has been doing for years – we are seeing more NHS workers coming out in support of strikes.
We are tired of working to the bone in order to keep patients safe and healthy, while the government refuse to do the same for us!
Staff are striking as we face yet another year of cuts to our pay – this has left us with the highest waiting lists on record and a national staffing crisis. We have been raising the alarm for years, but our callous government refuse to listen.
We must come out in opposition and make it clear WE DO NOT support plans to further privatise the NHS in order to keep the wealthy rich and satisfied, while regular people like us pay with our taxes and our lives.
We must come out and show them we will no longer allow this to continue.
Please join us.
Going beyond just strikes
Meanwhile, NHS Workers Say No has joined as a signatory on an open letter from campaign group EveryDoctor:
We're delighted to welcome NHS Workers Say No as signatories on our letter calling on UK leaders to declare a #HumanitarianCrisis in the NHS and take action accordingly to save lives.
In January 2017, the Chief Executive of the British Red Cross described the situation in the NHS during winter pressures as a humanitarian crisis. We are now witnessing a wholesale collapse of our NHS and social care system, with millions of people on waiting lists and hundreds of people dying needlessly every single week.
Given this loss of human life, the leaders of all nations must declare this a humanitarian crisis. With every day they fail to act, more people are needlessly dying.
It’s remarkably positive that NHS workers are going beyond just striking. Doing protests and publishing pointed letters will draw attention to years of Tory underfunding and wilful decimation of the NHS. This multi-pronged approach is what’s needed at this time. So, see you all outside Downing Street on 18 January – if we don’t see you before at the RMT demo on the 16th.
Human Rights Watch warns UK has ‘very short window’ to reverse legislation, including restrictions on the right to protest
The UK government could soon make the list of countries that abuse rather than protect human rights with its “outright assault” on the rights of its own citizens and aggressive roll-back of protections such as on the right to assemble and protest, according to the international NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“The shrinking civic space is not relegated to countries far away,” said Tirana Hassan, the acting executive director of HRW. “When you come to the UK, you look at the very worrying trend we are seeing. A slew of legislation was passed last year where fundamental human rights are being challenged. The protest law is something we are deeply concerned about.”
Human Rights Watch calls on government to address its own ‘alarming deficiencies’, including detention of children under 14 and treatment of asylum seekers
The detention of children under 14 and new laws targeting climate protesters are harming Australia’s credibility to stand up for human rights in the region, a leading rights body has warned.
Human Rights Watch called on Australia to address its own “alarming deficiencies” when the organisation on Thursday published its annual reports on the performance of nearly 100 countries.
Alarm raised after two men found guilty of running over police officer are moved to solitary confinement
Protesters have gathered outside a prison near the Iranian capital in an attempt to prevent the rumoured imminent execution of two young detainees found guilty of running over a police officer in a car during protests in November.
Footage posted on social media showed the mother of one of the men, 22-year-old Mohammad Ghobadlou, pleading for her son outside Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj, a satellite city west of Tehran. She said it had been established that her son had not been at the scene when the police officer died.
Alidoosti was arrested for support of women’s movement in Iran, including posing on Instagram without hijab
The celebrated Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti has been released from prison by the authorities after her friends and family provided bail. Pictures of her outside jail with campaigners holding flowers and without a hijab were shown on Iranian social media.
She had been arrested for issuing statements of support for the women’s movement in Iran, including by posing on Instagram without a hijab, the compulsory hair covering in the country.
In preparation for a nonviolent mass direct action planned for April that Extinction Rebellion says will be “impossible” for policymakers to ignore, the global climate movement’s United Kingdom arm on Sunday announced a resolution for the new year: temporarily ending its headline-grabbing, disruptive tactics including gluing protesters to government buildings and rush-hour trains and blocking traffic to draw attention to the climate crisis.
The U.K. group will no longer use “public disruption as a primary tactic,” saying in a statement that “what’s needed now most is to disrupt the abuse of power and imbalance, to bring about a transition to a fair society that works together to end the fossil fuel era.”
“In a time when speaking out and taking action are criminalized, building collective power, strengthening in number, and thriving through bridge-building is a radical act.”
“This year, we prioritize attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks, as we stand together and become impossible to ignore,” Extinction Rebellion U.K. (XRUK) said.
The group announced the shift away from public disruption as it prepared for a mass protest called “The Big One,” in which it’s planning to mobilize 100,000 people to surround the Houses of Parliament in London on April 21 and demand climate action and an end to the government’s support of the fossil fuel industry.
\u201cWE QUIT! \n\nOur #NewYearsResolution is to halt our tactics of public disruption. Instead, we call on everyone to help us disrupt our corrupt government.\n\n#ChooseYourFuture & join us: 21 April, Parliament.\u201d
— Extinction Rebellion UK \ud83c\udf0d (@Extinction Rebellion UK \ud83c\udf0d)
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Instead of orchestrating actions in which demonstrators disrupt daily life, the group said, XRUK is urging supporters to spend the 100 days leading up to The Big One “holding millions of conversations with friends, family, colleagues, and strangers” to spread the word about the action as organizers work to partner with other environmental campaigns.
“A powerful targeted marketing campaign across all channels will reach new audiences with an accessible, inclusive, and easy-to-understand invitation while simultaneously bringing in funds,” said XRUK.
The group’s shift away from disruptive tactics follows the introduction of new protest restrictions in the U.K. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act made it an offense to “intentionally or recklessly [cause] public nuisance” and allowed police chiefs to impose start and finish times for demonstrations and set noise limits. A new bill proposed in October by the Conservative government would make “interference with key national infrastructure” punishable by imprisonment.
“In a time when speaking out and taking action are criminalized, building collective power, strengthening in number, and thriving through bridge-building is a radical act,” said the organization.
While XRUK is targeting dialogue between communities and direct nonviolent pressure on policymakers—choosing 100,000 people for the April 21 protest because that is the number of signatories needed for a petition to force Parliament to address a demand—groups such as Just Stop Oil have recently drawn attention to their disruptive tactics, vandalizing works of art such as Vincent Van Gogh’s “Flowers” at London’s National Gallery.
XRUK argued in its statement Sunday that widespread anger in the U.K. over the cost of living makes it all the more likely that members of the public will be open to assembling at Parliament to voice their discontent with a government that is continuing to issue oil and gas licenses in the North Sea and subsidize fossil fuel companies, despite dire warnings about continued oil and gas extraction.
“This is a moment of huge potential,” said XRUK. “Word on the streets is that the cost-of-living crisis is the price of climate inaction. The government’s unlawful plans have never been so transparently flawed and widely understood… Worsening climate conditions are already impacting global food supplies and that will only further exacerbate the cost-of-living crisis, meaning that change is not only necessary, it is inevitable.”
By leaving “the locks, glue, and paint behind” and assembling in large numbers at Parliament Square for as long as they are able, supporters of the protest “will create a positive, irreversible, societal tipping point,” XRUK added.
“Recent history is full of examples of the power of people power—of your power. Here are just a few:Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, Manila, February 1986;Wenceslas Square, Prague, November 1989;Maidan Square, Kyiv, November 2004,” said the group. “All that’s missing from the list is Parliament Square, London, April 2023.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
Foreign affairs committee chair says holding of men allegedly involved in protests part of ‘industrialised taking of hostages’
All British people still in Iran should leave immediately because of the “industrialised” level of people being taken state hostage, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee has said.
Alicia Kearns made her call after the Iranian government said it had arrested seven “British linked” suspects including some dual nationals allegedly involved in the country’s anti-government protests, which began 100 days ago.
Six people in Atlanta have been charged with domestic terrorism for taking part in protests against a massive new police training facility known as Cop City. The protesters were taking part in a months-long encampment in a forested area of Atlanta where the city wants to build a $90 million, 85-acre training center on the site of a former prison farm. Conservationists have long wanted to protect…
2022 may be remembered as the year that climate protests got weird. Activists prowled cities in the dead of night, using lentils to deflate the tires of thousands of SUVs. They glued themselves to airport runways. They also glued themselves to priceless artwork in museums, dumped flour on a sports car painted by Andy Warhol, and, infamously, launched a can of Heinz tomato soup at the glass protecting Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.”
Frustrated with the sluggish pace of climate action, protesters turned to disruptive tactics, risking arrest and widespread disapproval. Activists made people late for work; they delayed flights; they were accused of vandalism. Their actions weren’t popular, but they anticipated that.
“We’re going to be noisy. We’re going to be disruptive. We’re going to be unignorable. We’re going to be a pain in the ass until you listen to us,” Emma Brown, a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil, the coalition behind the museum protests, recently told PBS Newshour. The group hopes to persuade the U.K. government to put a stop to all new fossil fuel projects.
When a pair of activists with Just Stop Oil tossed tomato soup at the van Gogh painting in London’s National Gallery in October, it sparked a widespread debate about the effectiveness of such tactics. In a survey of more than 2,000 Americans conducted within a month of the protest, 46 percent said that “disruptive non-violent actions including shutting down morning commuter traffic and damaging pieces of art” decreased their support for efforts to address climate change. Only 13 percent said such actions increased their support.
Climate protesters hold a demonstration after throwing soup at Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London, United Kingdom, October 14, 2022. The gallery said the work was unharmed aside from minor damage to the frame. Just Stop Oil / Handout / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The thing is, the public rarely approves of disruptive protests — unless they happened sometime in the past. Suffragettes actually slashed paintings, permanently damaging them, and then were remembered as heroes. Even peaceful marches, as they unfold, are sometimes seen as unhelpful. After Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech following the 1963 March on Washington, three-quarters of Americans said they thought mass demonstrations harmed the cause, according to Gallup polling. The following year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
That doesn’t mean that throwing soup at famous paintings will bring down greenhouse gas emissions, but it does suggest that the public has a poor track record of guessing what makes social movements successful. Experts say that disruptive demonstrations play an important role in gathering attention for a cause and making tamer protests appear more acceptable by comparison.
“Confrontational protests, violent or not, are part of all successful social movements,” said Oscar Berglund, who researches climate activism and civil disobedience at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.
While climate protests are generally peaceful, fiery ones could raise the risk that things will get violent, depending on the circumstances. “The line between confrontational activism and violence is a very, very fuzzy line, particularly when you have law enforcement who may or may not be empowered to harm protesters,” said Dana Fisher, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who has studied the effectiveness of climate activism for two decades. States have recently passed draconian laws with harsh penalties for blocking fossil fuel infrastructure.
Despite that, there’s a growing appetite for nonviolent climate demonstrations. One-fifth of Americans under 40 say they’d likely participate in civil disobedience — such as sit-ins, blockades, or trespassing — to support action on climate change if a friend asked them to, according to a survey conducted last September by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Fisher says that participation in civil disobedience appears to be on the rise, based on her surveys of AmeriCorps workers and climate organizers.
“There is potential here for a huge disruptive movement to arise quickly,” said Margaret Klein Salamon, the executive director of the Climate Emergency Fund, which backs nonviolent climate activism. Confrontational actions haven’t picked up speed in the United States as fast as they have in the United Kingdom, but there are signs that a wave may be starting here as well.
In April this year, climate scientists chained themselves to a JPMorgan Chase building in Los Angeles to protest the bank’s funding of fossil fuel projects. In the summer, drivers of SUVs and pickup trucks in New York, the Bay Area, and Chicago found their vehicles with tires deflated and a leaflet on their windshield: “Your gas guzzler kills.” It was the work of the Tyre Extinguishers, an international group aiming “to make it impossible” to own large personal vehicles in cities. Last month, protesters picketed at private airports in New Jersey, North Carolina, California, and Washington state to highlight the toll that private jets took on the planet.
Disruptive protests are, by their nature, uncomfortable. Salamon, who is also a clinical psychologist, says the public is living in a “state of mass delusion” with regard to the climate crisis, sleepwalking into catastrophe. The role of activists is to shake everyone awake.
“If you think about it from that perspective, it makes all the sense in the world why these activists would be unpopular. You know, they’re making people think about climate — they’re making people feel really painful feelings, because it’s such a tough reality,” Salamon said.
Activists from Just Stop Oil close down a fuel terminal by boarding fuel haulage vehicles in Grays, England, April 1, 2022.
Guy Smallman / Getty Images
Confrontational tactics can draw criticism, anger, and even death threats. But many activists feel that more conventional means of protesting won’t bring results. A phenomenon called the “activist’s dilemma” illustrates the problem. Protesters often have to choose between moderate actions that are easily ignored or more extreme actions that might alienate the public.
“It isn’t fun: I hate disrupting people’s lives, and it’s upsetting that it’s come to this. But it has come to this,” an anonymous Tyre Extinguisher activist told Vice earlier this year. “We feel that nothing else will work — we don’t have any more time for letters or marches or waiting for more elections. We’ve had those strategies for 30 years and they’re not working. It’s time to shake things up.”
Phoebe Plummer, one of the soup throwers with Just Stop Oil, admitted that their action was, in their own words, “slightly ridiculous,” but argued that the absurdity of the protest was what got the conversation on climate action going. In the months preceding the “Sunflowers” incident, Just Stop Oil had attacked a more logical target: oil terminals. Activists blocked so much oil infrastructure in April that they forced one in three gas stations in southern England to close. But they received little international attention.
Disruptive protests play a role in setting the agenda by opening up space for issues that might otherwise not get discussed. Take Insulate Britain, a group that began blocking roads in the United Kingdom last September, demanding that the government retrofit all U.K. homes to make them more energy-efficient. The group was widely unpopular, with only 16 percent of people surveyed viewing them favorably one month later.
Insulate Britain protesters block roads at Parliament Square in London, England, October 12, 2022.
Rob Pinney / Getty Images
But in the month after the protests began, the number of times that print newspapers in the United Kingdom mentioned “insulation” had doubled (not including references to “Insulate,” part of the group’s name). By June this year, the issue had risen on the policy agenda, with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson drawing up plans to insulate thousands of homes before winter struck. At the time, one official suggested that the policy could be called — wait for it — “insulate Britain.”
It’s hard to draw a straight line from protest to policy change, but experts say disruptive demonstrations may be more helpful than many people believe. “The fact that it’s unpopular doesn’t mean that it’s ineffective,” Berglund said, referring to Insulate Britain. “Ultimately, even if people dislike what protesters do, it doesn’t automatically turn them against the course that those protesters are fighting for.”
Of course, such protests are not great for building broad movements. They’re probably not going to change the minds of the minority of Americans who oppose climate policies. “These activists and the groups that are organizing these kinds of activism are acutely aware that they’re not speaking to those people,” Fisher said. Instead, they’re trying to mobilize people who are already sympathetic. Polarizing the public has the effect of forcing people to take a stance on something they might not be thinking about otherwise.
And by some measures, the strategy might already be working. Fisher said that the soup incident was “through-the-roof effective” by many of the short-term goals activists use to judge effectiveness, such as media coverage, even if it’s unclear what effect the action will have in the long run. According to Just Stop Oil’s organizers, the attention-grabbing protest made it easier to recruit new people.
In the recent past, civil disobedience was seen by climate organizers as “a bad tool,” Fisher said. “But there’s no question that the young generation of climate activists absolutely include that as one of their tools now.”
Detention of one of Iran’s most famous performers sign state wants to crack down on celebrities who challenge regime
Taraneh Alidoosti, one of Iran’s most famous actors, has been detained by security forces in Tehran days after she criticised the state’s use of the death penalty against protesters.
Figures from Tehran province indicate extent of clampdown on protests sparked by killing of Masha Amini
Courts in and around the Iranian capital have jailed 400 people for charges related to recent protests, with many of the defendants sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.
Ali Alghasi-Mehr, judiciary chief for Tehran province, said judges had handed down the rulings to “rioters” – a term officials use for all demonstrators who defy Iran’s hardline theocratic rule.
Exclusive: Men and women coming in with shotgun wounds to different parts of bodies, doctors say
Iranian security forces are targeting women at anti-regime protests with shotgun fire to their faces, breasts and genitals, according to interviews with medics across the country.
Doctors and nurses – treating demonstrators in secret to avoid arrest – said they first observed the practice after noticing that women often arrived with different wounds to men, who more commonly had shotgun pellets in their legs, buttocks and backs.
As the country barrelled towards a potential rail workers strike last week, battle lines were drawn over the issue of paid sick leave. On the one side were unions — the signalmen, track workers, boilermakers, and conductors — who had rejected a contract brokered in September that didn’t include paid time off for illnesses or medical visits. On the other were big rail companies, which have spent years cutting staff, extending worker hours, and enacting stricter attendance policies, all while making record-breaking profits.
Behind the scenes, however, another big industry also had stakes in the standoff: Big Oil. Coal companies, chemical companies, and oil and gas backed rail majors in lobbying Congress to block the workers’ strike.
In early November, the American Chemistry Council, which counts BP, ExxonMobil, and Chevron among its members, put out a report warning that a rail strike could “pull $160 billion out of the economy” and lead to 700,000 job losses. Then last week, 400 business groups sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to use their authority from a 1926 law to impose the controversial, rejected contract in the absence of a voluntary agreement. In addition to retailers, agriculturists, and car manufacturers, signatories included the American Petroleum Institute, a trade group for drillers, the National Mining Association, and the Renewable Fuels Association, representing ethanol. All of these industries rely on freight rail to make and ship their products.
“A rail strike would threaten to push an alarming situation over the edge,” Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said in a press statement, invoking the already-low coal stockpiles moving into the winter. “The nation needs reliable and efficient rail service and it’s imperative that Congress and the Biden administration act to ensure a strike doesn’t jeopardize it.”
In the end, rail companies and fossil fuel interests were joined by President Joe Biden, who urged Congress to avert the strike over fears of economic breakdown. On Thursday, the Senate did just that, forcing workers to accept the contract with paid sick leave still missing.
“The fact that there are not 60 senators willing to stand up to big business and fight for basic rights for U.S. rail workers is horrific,” tweeted Teamster General President Sean O’Brien.
At first glance, rail would seem like a relatively climate-friendly industry. Transportation is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases in the United States, where passenger cars, trucks, and buses make up over 70 percent of the sector’s emissions. Rail contributes just 2 percent, even while it moves a third of all U.S. exports and about 40 percent of long-distance freight.
But what is often missing in these calculations is what these trains are carrying. Freight trains transport nearly 70 percent of the nation’s coal. When you account for that, they were actually responsible for 16.5 percent of all U.S. carbon pollution in 2019, according to Stanford geoscience professor Rob Jackson, as reported by the Atlantic.
Workers repair the tracks at the Metra/BNSF railroad yard in Chicago, Illinois. The track workers union voted against a contract with the rail companies that did not include paid sick leave. Scott Olson/Getty Images
“Coal was our number one revenue source until about the 1990s,” Jim Blaze, a railroad economist who worked for 21 years at Conrail, told Grist. (Conrail, once the primary railroad system in the Northeast, was acquired by CSX and Norfolk Southern in 1997.) Coal shipments have been declining in recent years, as natural gas takes its place in the energy mix and cargo containers and chemical shipments become more important revenue drivers for the rail industry. Still, coal makes up close to 27 percent of freight rail volume in the U.S., and 11 percent of freight’s revenue. As a result, the rail industry continues to be closely allied with coal.
Research from 2019 showed how, over the past 30 years, BNSF Railway, Norfork Southern, Union Pacific, and CSX, the four largest rail companies in the U.S., joined other coal-dependent companies such as electric utilities in pouring tens of millions of dollars into denying climate science and opposing climate policy.
“It shows that the rail companies were actually funding more climate denialism organizations than even the oil industry,” said Justin Mikulka, a research fellow at the energy transition think tank New Consensus who formerly covered the rail industry as a journalist. “Coal has been such a huge part of rail – it was in their interest to deny that coal was part of the problem.”
According to The New Republic, it was only in late 2020 that the four big rail companies began to abandon their membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, also called America’s Power, which lobbies against climate action and has promoted the “social benefits” of carbon.
And coal isn’t alone. While most oil and gas is sent by pipeline, the oil and gas industry does still rely on rail. Marianne Kah, an oil and gas economist, told The Hill that freight rail moves between 300,000 and 700,000 barrels of crude oil, and 200,000 to 300,000 barrels of propane per day, which, though small quantities compared to coal, do impact availability and price. Oil and gas companies also rely heavily on chemicals transported by trains to create their products. Refiners receive isobutane and ethanol by rail to use in gasoline; in fact, over 70 percent of all ethanol produced in the U.S. travels by rail, and ethanol plants for their part rely on rail to bring in a quarter of their grain. Rail also carries away the sulfur byproducts from the refining process.
Beyond writing letters to block the most recent strike, oil and gas companies have a history of collaborating with the rail industry to avoid freight regulation. In 2013, after a series of high-profile oil train explosions, regulatory agencies spent years trying to implement oil-by-train safety policies, including speed limits for trains, improved braking systems, and requirements to condition oil to make it safer to put in tank cars. “At every meeting by one of the regulatory agencies, the person at the head of the table was someone from the American Petroleum Institute [or API],” said Mikulka, who wrote a book about how freight and oil companies blocked regulations in the years after a runaway train filled with crude oil derailed in Quebec, exploding and killing 47 people.“Even though we’re talking about rail regulations, oftentimes it appeared that the API was driving what was happening.”
Protestors stood with rail unions outside the U.S. Capitol last week as Congress voted on legislation to avert a strike. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
It’s hard to predict what type of long-term impact shutting down coal and ethanol shipments via a strike would have had on the markets and the move to clean energy, said Blaze. But as Kate Aronoff writes in The New Republic, the strike showed how central fossil fuels still are to the U.S. economy, and how corporate polluters continue their fight to keep it that way.
Ironically, many of the same industries that lobbied against the strike on Capitol Hill have railed against the freight companies at agency hearings for delays and service disruptions. “Shippers and railroad customers were upset this summer about the services they were getting,” said Clark Ballew, a former rail worker and current communications director for the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, which represents track workers. “Their concerns stem from the fact that railroads don’t have enough people to keep trains moving. The way that we can improve this is… better treatment of employees, that’s the root cause of their problems.”
Strikes are uncommon in rail history, in part because of Congress’ power to intervene, which it historically does on behalf of industry. Rail workers hoped that a more favorable agreement could have been worked out at the bargaining table, or enforced through Congress, by passing a health care addendum to the contract.
“At this juncture it’s clear they’re not going to allow the strike to occur,” said Ballew, just two hours before the Senate voted to impose the contract. “We just want the sick leave added. Can Scrooge be nice to us? It’s Christmastime.”
He says the issue of paid leave will come up again in two years when the contracts are up for renewal.
It seems it’s not just the UK state which is drifting further to the authoritarian right – authorities in Australia has just jailed a climate crisis protester for 15 months for blocking a road.
the act will affect our right to protest. But until we’re on the streets, we won’t know exactly what we’ll be arrested for. This is because the act is – in many sections – ambiguous, and will give police forces the freedom to interpret the law as they see fit. For example, the police will be able to impose conditions – such as when and where the protest can take place – if the noise of a protest will cause ‘serious disruption’.
Now, if you live in Australia, this may well ring some bells. This is because the government of an Australian state has just done similar to the UK.
Australia: jailing climate activists
As World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) reported, a New South Wales judge jailed Deanna ‘Violet’ Coco for 15 months, to serve a minimum of eight. Her crime was blocking a road during a climate crisis protest. As WSWS wrote, a judge jailed Coco because in April, in Sydney:
she parked a truck on [a] bridge and stood holding a lit flare, intended as a distress signal. This protest blocked one of the bridge’s five city-bound lanes during the morning peak for about 28 minutes, before police removed her and others.
accused Coco of engaging in “childish stunts” that had let an “entire city suffer,” even though only one bridge lane was blocked. Moreover, the protest was clearly motivated by genuine and serious concerns over the dangerous warming of the planet’s atmosphere. For this, the magistrate told Coco she was “not a political prisoner,” but “a criminal.”
Coco was the first person to be sentenced under new laws in New South Wales. The state’s Liberal Party premier backed the judge’s decision to lock up the climate activist:
Premier Perrottet backs sentencing of Deanna “Violet” Coco. He says it is “pleasing to see” and warns others against taking part in protests that “inconvenience people”. “If protesters want to put our way of life at risk then they should have the book thrown at them.” pic.twitter.com/KlrC3Wxhi1
#Australia – I am alarmed at #NSW court's prison term against #ClimateProtester 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗰𝗼 and refusal to grant bail until a March 2023 appeal hearing. Peaceful protesters should never be criminalised or imprisoned.https://t.co/uvxN0f7Inl
— UN Special Rapporteur Freedom of Association (@cvoule) December 2, 2022
Clearly, the UK state cracking down on our freedom to protest is not unusual under our capitalist system. However, it appears that authorities are upping the ante when it comes to trying to shut ordinary people up over their concerns about the state of the world.
Three months after the uprising began, demonstrators are still risking their lives. Will this generation succeed where previous attempts to unseat the Islamic hardliners have been crushed?
For the past 12 weeks, revolutionary sentiment has been coursing through the cities and towns of the Persian plateau. The agitation was triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, on 16 Septe mber after she was arrested by the morality police in Tehran. From the outset the movement had a feminist character, but it has also united citizens of different classes and ethnicities around a shared desire to see the back of the Islamic Republic. Iran has known numerous protest movements over the past decade and a half, and the nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has comfortably suppressed each one with a combination of severity and deft exploitation of divisions within the opposition. This time, however, the resilience and unity shown by the regime’s opponents have consigned the old pattern of episodic unrest to the past. Iran has entered a period of rolling protest in which the Islamic Republic must defend itself against wave upon wave of public anger.
In their retaliation against the protesters, the security forces have killed at least 448 people, including 60 children and 29 women, and made up to 17,000 arrests. Thirty-six protesters have been charged with capital crimes, according to Hadi Ghaemi of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, including several people accused of killing members of the security forces. Still, the authorities insist that they have erred on the side of restraint. On 9 November the commander of Iran’s ground forces warned that Khamenei only needed to say the word and the opposition “flies” would “without question have no place left in the country”.
While the Scottish government continues to freeze people’s rents, the same cannot be said for the Tories in England. So, several groups are taking action against self-serving MPs, and “out of control” landlords and estate agents – all of whom are responsible for housing chaos across the country.
England’s rental chaos
The London Renters Union is a community-led action group fighting for tenants across the capital. As Inside Croydon reported, the group is working with the Greater Manchester Tenants Union. They’re staging a coordinated day of action on Saturday 3 December over the rented housing market in England:
Manchester Renters! Join us as we collaborate with @LDNRentersUnion for a national day of action THIS SATURDAY DEC 3RD!
Meeting at the Engels Statue, 11am, near HOME Cinema in Manchester!
under which landlords do not need to provide any cause for ordering a tenant out of their property, have increased by 76% in 2022 compared to the previous 12 months. In 2019, the Tory government made an election pledge to abolish Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988. Three years later, nothing has been done to honour that commitment.
rents on new listings are up by almost a third since 2019, and some people are facing increases of up to 60%. Prices in 48 council areas are now classed by the Office for National Statistics as unaffordable when compared with average wages.
The protests on 3 December will be highlighting all this:
Back in 2019 the Tories promised a "new deal for renters".
What have we got?
Evictions up 76%.
Rents up £3,300 per year.
Join the fight for a housing system that works for people not profit.
Many of us are facing huge rent increases and homelessness. Landlords and estate agents are out of control.
On Saturday, we’re fighting back. We’re protesting against the big estate agents that make their money by pushing our rents up. There’s already a rent freeze in Scotland. That means its illegal for landlords in Scotland to raise the rent or evict renters. Let’s fight for the same here.
In Scotland, the SNP-led government changed the law so landlords could not put rent up between 6 September and at least 31 March, 2023. The government can keep the rent freeze in place for a “further two six-month periods”. Plus, the law also stops landlords evicting people – except for in certain circumstances. Moreover, new figures show just why the rent freeze was necessary. As the National reported, in the year up to September (before the rent freeze started), figures showed that:
average rents rose in 17 out of 18 [Scottish] regions, with South Lanarkshire seeing the highest rise of 10.3%.
Of course, it would be too much to think that Westminster MPs would freeze English rents. This is probably because, as Transparency International found:
27% of MPs own a second home.
40% of MPs and peers have a property interest – with the Tories being the highest at 43%.
This level of conflicts of interests is part of the problem with England’s rental system. So, as London Renters Union said:
By taking action together, we can force politicians to back a #RentFreezeNow. But to do that, we need you to join our day of action this Saturday.
Fighting back
You can get involved on social media using the hashtag #RentFreezeNow. Physical protests are happening at the following locations:
Brent: 12pm, Willesden Green station.
Lewisham: 11:30am, Vicar’s Oak entrance to Crystal Palace Park.
Hackney: 12pm, the platform on Mare Street next to Hackney Tap.
Haringey: 10:30am, Pret A Manger, the Mall, Wood Green.
Newham: 12pm, Stratford Station, opposite the old shopping centre.
Tower Hamlets: 11am, Roman Road market.
With inflation set to continue to rise and Tory government inaction also likely to continue, community organising has never been more important.
Sign up for London Renters Union’s day of action here.
People across Iran have been protesting for nearly three months, defying a deadly crackdown by regime forces. The demonstrations are seen as a fierce challenge to four decades of hardline clerical rule. The protesters’ cry of ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ has galvanised the movement, which has travelled around the world, but within Iran there have been more than 18,000 arrests, violence and a rising death toll. With protesters refusing to back down, we look at what they want and why they are willing to risk everything to get it
Detention of Voria Ghafouri, former captain of Tehran club Esteghlal, seen as warning to World Cup team
Iranian security forces on Thursday arrested one of the country’s most famous footballers, accusing him of spreading propaganda against the Islamic republic and seeking to undermine the national World Cup team.
Voria Ghafouri, once a captain of the Tehran club Esteghlal, has been outspoken in his defence of Iranian Kurds, telling the government on social media to stop killing Kurdish people. He has previously been detained for criticising the former Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif.
An Australian citizen is among at least 40 foreign nationals now held in Iranian jails amid pro-democracy protests across the country – and an escalating violent response by regime forces.
A spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the Iranian-Australian dual national had not been arrested for taking part in the anti-regime protests but confirmed that Australian officials had been refused access to assess the person’s welfare.
Activists accuse state forces of deploying heavy weaponry, as attacks on Kurdish areas intensify
Iran’s repression of anti-regime protests appears to have entered a dangerous new phase, with activists accusing state forces of deploying heavy weapons and helicopters and a UN official describing the situation as “critical”.
A nationwide uprising has convulsed the country since the death in September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was allegedly beaten into a coma by the Islamic Republic’s “morality police” after they arrested her for wearing a headscarf they deemed inappropriate.
Hebe de Bonafini co-founded Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in 1977 after her two sons were arrested and then disappeared
Hebe de Bonafini, who became a human rights campaigner when her two sons were arrested and then disappeared under Argentina’s military dictatorship has died, her family and authorities have reported. She was 93.
The death on Sunday was confirmed by her only surviving child, Alejandra, who expressed thanks for expressions of support her mother had received while hospitalised in the city of La Plata. Local officials said she had suffered from unspecified chronic illnesses.
Harassment of climate summit delegates and holding pen for protesters mar country’s attempt to polish international reputation
An empty pen designed to contain protesters in the middle of the desert, harassment and surveillance of Cop27 delegates (including evidence that the official conference app could spy on them), food and water shortages, and widespread problems with accommodation have all served to undermine the Egyptian government’s attempts to use the climate talk to bolster its international image.
Belgian politician Séverine de Laveleye said she was briefly detained by Egyptian security forces while entering the conference centre simply for carrying badges depicting some of Egypt’s 65,000 political prisoners, including British-Egyptian democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah. “It’s clear that human rights aren’t even respected at the heart of the Cop,” she said. “Sisi’s Egypt is one of repression.”
Bristol Copwatch founder John Pegram alleges that police forces have breached his data – held on the police national computer (PNC) – numerous times. As reported by the Canary in February, Pegram seeks to take Avon and Somerset Police to court on the grounds that the force is in breach of data protection laws. He now also intends to develop a case against the British Transport Police (BTP) due to the force storing false information regarding gunshot residue on his possessions.
Pegram is a longstanding anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigner, and founded grassroots police monitoring group Bristol Copwatch in 2020. He feels that police are targeting him due to his activism, as well as his identity as a mixed-race Black man. He’s concerned that police forces are not only storing but also sharing his inaccurate criminal records data, resulting in increased surveillance and over-policing across the country.
Data protection
As reported by the Canary in February, Pegram seeks to take Avon and Somerset police to court on the grounds that the force is in breach of data protection laws. Pegram’s criminal record incorrectly states that he assaulted a police officer. This means that the force is in breach of the 2018 Data Protection Act.
Regarding the impact of the force’s abuse of his data protection and privacy rights, he told the Canary:
In terms of trauma – they’ve done a lot of damage.
Speaking to the Canary about Pegram’s case in February, Kevin Blowe, from police monitoring organisation Netpol, said:
John’s case highlights Netpol’s long-standing concerns about the way inaccurate information retained on secretive police databases can have alarming real-world consequences. In John’s case, the wrong details on police records reinforces the stereotype of black communities as violent that is so prevalent in institutionally racist everyday policing.
Indeed, Pegram’s case fits into wider patterns of the police’s surveillance of communities of colour through initiatives such as the Metropolitan police’s discriminatory gangs matrix. Established in the wake of the 2011 uprisings, the gangs matrix is a database which holds the personal data of people who the Met perceives to be ‘gang’ affiliated. It excessively and disproportionately targets young Black people. By 2017, 78% of people on the matrix were Black, despite just 27% of people convicted of serious youth violence offences being Black.
Following a legal challenge by civil liberties organisation Liberty, the Met conceded that the way the gangs matrix currently functions is unlawful. This is on the grounds that it discriminates against Black people, and breaches people’s right to a private and family life by sharing data with third parties such as the Home Office, local authorities, and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Following Liberty’s challenge, the Met police agreed to redesign its matrix. And in October, Met police chief Mark Rowley removed the names of over 1,000 young people who the police perceive to pose little to no threat of violence from the database.
Racist treatment
Pegram suspects that the police have a “vendetta” against him, and have made his life difficult due to his longstanding involvement in anti-fascist and anti-racist campaigning across the country, as well as his grassroots community activism with Bristol Copwatch.
Pegram explained that because of his work with Bristol Copwatch, he understands the extent to which police target activists, and particularly people of colour. While speaking with the Canary, Pegram highlighted parallels between his own experience and that of Bristol race relations adviser Ras Judah. Judah is a Black Caribbean community elder who Avon and Somerset police repeatedly harassed and tasered in 2017 and 2018. His experience of violent and racist policing in Bristol is depicted in a new documentary, I am Judah.
Pegram is concerned that Avon and Somerset Police has shared intelligence on him, resulting in “racist policing responses” by other forces such as the Met and BTP. He claims that other forces have infringed data protection regulations when collecting and handling his data, as well as his right to a private life.
Pegram accused one BTP officer of “unsafe and racist” behaviour during his arrest and detention in 2019. Pegram told the Canary that while officers detained him in a police van, he voiced concerns about his racist treatment by officers, as well as the handcuffs being secured too tightly. According to Pegram, one officer responded by saying:
I’ve not had to wait that long for a race card in a long time.
And:
The next person to beat that I’ll tell them about you. 40 minutes. You’re a hero to me.
Pegram told the Canary that he found the experience to be “upsetting”, and characteristic of the police’s “discriminatory, institutionally racist approach”. BTP’s Professional Standards Department is currently investigating Pegram’s complaint regarding the arrest.
Future policing
Pegram stated that the BTP also “overstepped the mark” when processing his belongings following his arrest. Pegram suspects that the force sent his confiscated keyring to a crime scene investigation team. He suspects this because his property is recorded under the category of “Investigative samples/forensics – CSI Trace: Gun shot residue from CSI trace” on the force’s database.
Responding to Pegram’s complaint regarding this, a member of the BTP’s data protection team maintains that “there were no forensic actions undertaken in relation to the item”. They state that the force likely categorised Pegram’s property by mistake while transferring criminal records data from one management system to another. The force has not yet updated Pegram’s record to reflect this. However, Pegram believes that it is “unlikely that it was done by accident”.
Either way, by altering Pegram’s criminal record without the legal grounding to do so, and failing to change his record to reflect the truth, the force could be breaching data protection regulations.
Pegram is concerned that the inaccurate marker on his record could trigger further unfair treatment by police. He told the Canary that it implies to police that he’s “the sort of person that goes around carrying carrying a gun”. He’s concerned that this information will be shared between forces, and may impact future interactions with police. This could manifest in further surveillance, the excessive use of force, and encounters with “the sharp end of the armed police”. He told The Canary that this “is creating a lot of trauma and a lot of distress” for him.
Pegram hopes to take legal action against the BTP regarding its potential breach of data protection regulations.
On the path to justice
Pegram told the Canary that through his experience, he has learnt that police “can say whatever they want about people” by holding inaccurate information on internal systems. He added that through these methods, police can “effectively ruin people’s lives if they want to”. Pegram’s concerns are heightened as the government seeks to increase police powers through cracking down on our right to protest.
Although the ongoing ordeal has been “traumatic” and “stressful” for the activist, Pegram feels hopeful that he is now on a path “towards some sort of justice”.
Regarding his case against Avon and Somerset Police, Pegram told the Canary:
It’s not really about the compensation. It’s more about holding the police to account and ensuring they get the message they can’t do this to people. [9:39]
In February, Blowe told the Canary:
It has taken John’s enormous persistence to discover the false data that means he is routinely targeted and harassed by the police. Now, hopefully, he will raise enough funds to finally start to clear his name.
Pegram is raising funds via CrowdJustice for the initial stages of his claim against Avon and Somerset Police. He is represented by Bindmans LLP.
“Honestly, what I want is to be in Sharm el-Sheikh and just scream,” said Amr Magdi of Human Rights Watch. Like dozens of other prominent human rights defenders, researchers and environmentalists, Magdi has been unable to attend Cop27 as he is exiled from Egypt because of his work.
“I just want to tell everyone about the injustice happening in Egypt. I can’t do it personally and I’m trying to do it with my work. I’m even helping others who are able to travel there to do this,” he said.
Video apparently shows crowds marching in Zahedan to condemn 30 September massacre of activists
Thousands of Iranians protested in the restive south-east to mark a 30 September crackdown by security forces known as “Bloody Friday” as the country’s rulers faced persistent nationwide unrest.
Amnesty International said security forces unlawfully killed at least 66 people in September after firing at protesters in Zahedan, capital of flashpoint Sistan and Baluchistan province. Authorities said dissidents had provoked the clashes.
Christopher Hind was sentenced to 21 months on 11 November 2022 for his role in the Bristol uprisings on 21 March 2021. This article is republished, with permission, from Christopher and the Network for Police Monitoring.
What would you do if you saw a man hitting another person with a stick?
A lot of people might see this, assume it’s none of their business and walk briskly past with their head down. But let’s say you’re not one of those people. You can’t just hurry off and forget what you’ve seen. It’s an ugly spectacle and you wonder if you should do something about it. On further inspection, you realise that the person on the receiving end of this man’s stick is unarmed, which makes things a lot more serious. This has now become a real cause for concern, and you start to wonder not if anything should be done about it, but what exactly should be done about it. You look around at other people who are witnessing the same thing, you’re all looking back and forth at each other with startled expressions, not knowing exactly how to react.
What if the unarmed person being hit by the man with the stick is also a lot smaller and younger than their assailant? The situation now takes another, darker turn and, unless you’re somewhat empathetically challenged, it surely then becomes impossible not to take some kind of action. How you may choose to act in this situation might vary depending on what kind of person you are. Maybe you’re hard as nails and you wade in to try and restrain the attacker. Maybe you point and shout to raise the alarm to other passersby. Maybe you whip out your phone and upload it to Tik Tok. Of course, the most common course of action would be to phone the police. But what if this was the police? The scenario now takes on a whole new meaning.
And what if the person with the stick was wearing a police uniform?
Imagine all the same fundamental elements apply – there is a large man with a blunt weapon attacking a younger, smaller, unarmed person in the street; but now the attacker is wearing a police uniform. The clothing this man is wearing should seem fairly insignificant in this context, and in a sense it is – because what you are witnessing remains completely unacceptable no matter what clothing is being worn. But how should you react now the attacker is wearing a police uniform? Do you phone the authorities that police the police, or send out the bat signal?
We can all agree that large men hitting smaller people with sticks is generally bad. You don’t need to be a high-powered lawyer to know there are laws against it. So why do these laws seem to disappear in a puff of smoke as soon as it’s a policeman swinging his stick at people?
Let’s say you didn’t see this take place in the real world but saw it in a video on the Mail Online. A policeman hitting a young, unarmed protester with his stick. You get really angry, you’re fuming, and as the red mist descends you bang on that capslock and write, “WELL SHE MUST OF DONE SOMETHING TO DESERVE IT!!!!!!!” And then you go off for a little cry and punch a wall or something. A more composed contributor might make the point that something must have happened to provoke the violence. So then someone informs you that what they did was stick their finger up at the officer. “SEE THAT WOT U GET M8 LOCK HER UP AN THROW WAY THE KEY!!” would be a common online response, especially in the comments section of the second-most-read news outlet in the UK.
Does the punishment fit the crime?
Would you say the punishment fits the crime here? Is the punishment for flipping off a police officer to be flogged repeatedly with a baton? Is this the iron age? Also, if a large crowd of people witnesses this in real life, not just once but on multiple occasions by numerous officers, do you think there might be some kind of backlash?
Imagine you’re a man in his forties. You shine your shoes regularly and you wear a goatee with pride. You drink protein shakes and work out in your home gym every chance you get. You’re proud of your bulky mass, it makes you feel protected yet powerful, and as a result you’re not an easily intimidated person.
Let’s say one evening you, a large goatee-adorning man in his forties, are coming out of your local Tesco Express; you’ve just been to pick up Adele’s latest album, and as you’re walking back across the car park someone of radically less mass than you gives you the finger. This considerably smaller and much younger person stands right in front of you and just flips you off, right up in your face, in front of other onlookers. Do you, a large, bulky, goatee-sporting, protein-shake-drinking, home-gym-going man in his forties – a man of reasonable firmness – fear for your safety? It’d be weird if you do, but let’s say you would, for the benefit of the tape. Let’s say you’re so scared that you drop your Adele CD and go straight for your metal bar that you have hanging from your belt (just in case someone flips you off) and swing it as hard as possible at this person, in self-defence of course – because obviously, you’re really scared.
If you were an onlooker and saw someone in a carpark react in this way, to such a minor transgression, would you think that was okay?
It doesn’t really make sense, does it?
So, now pretend you’re this same man, but you’re at work. You work as a police officer and have trained further in the field of crowd control. It could be appreciated that hundreds of protesters gathering right in front of you and your colleagues, to vent how angry they are at how you’ve dealt with them, could make you fear for your safety. But if your unnecessarily violent approach to crowd dispersal is the exact cause of the instant repercussions you and your colleagues are at the receiving end of, then why keep doing it? If this is the reaction you routinely get from heavy-handed policing then why use this approach in the first place?
Crowds can obviously become rowdy, and as groupthink takes hold the vibe can plummet suddenly, so you and your work mates put on protective vests and helmets, you all grab shields and truncheons and you run out there and start hitting people? Do you think that’ll calm things down? It’s certainly not de-escalation 101. And not only are you hitting people, you’re hitting people indiscriminately, including the smaller, more vulnerable people in the crowd, and then expecting everyone else to just turn around and walk away.
It doesn’t really make sense, does it? If we don’t want big public altercations that end up with police vans on fire, then de-escalation is the only way to prevent that. But in theory, if you wanted to provoke a crowd of people who were protesting about worryingly authoritarian laws being passed, then a more violent approach would start to make sense.
As a normal person, you’d never want to see violence on our streets. But as a police officer, media mogul, or a politician – maybe it does serve a purpose. If you were a politician who was attempting to pass laws that attack the very foundations of democracy by repealing the right to protest, and your mate was a wealthy media tycoon, and you were having lunch together (on a purely personal basis, and definitely not a political one, promise ;-)) you might suggest to your friend that, “maybe it’d be rather handy to make these protesters look like unruly savages. I say, here’s an idea – let’s get the police to provoke them into an angry response by hitting them indiscriminately with those stick things we gave them, and then you can frame it, in that clever way you seem to be so adept at, so that your readers think the protesters are rather nasty fellows. Maybe you could put ‘DEEPLY MARXIST LOONY LEFTY ENGINEERS OF EXTREME TERROR AND CHAOS ATTACK POLICE IN BOTCHED ATTEMPT AT WORLD TAKEOVER’ on the front cover. They only pulled down that statue of Colston so they could replace it with one of Stalin, you know. Tell you what, old chap, the police themselves could even issue a false statement saying they’ve suffered broken bones, it doesn’t matter if they had to retract it later, just put the retraction in small print on page 30 or something. All that would work wonders for the PCSC bill that we’re trying to put through.”
Any protesters who’ve experienced these situations firsthand knows that this is actually an age-old tactic. It’s especially beneficial in the context of the PCSC bill, but it’s a tactic that exists not only in the form of aggressive policing but also in the form of agent provocateurs and other forms of baiting to encourage people to behave in a way that can be re-contextualised in the news to undermine the integrity of protests. Escalation and provocation of this kind can be used to shape public opinion in a way that benefits the political discourse of that time.
If de-escalation is the only direction of traffic in terms of keeping the peace, it seems that riot police work in direct opposition to that model, and the people they most often clash with seem to be those who are trying to change things for the better. To serve and protect is their motto, but in terms of protest, it seems that the public is not included in that.
I’m not a violent person
I was arrested and charged with riot after they matched my DNA with blood they found on one of their riot shields. On that evening, I was hit on the hand and knee with a truncheon, kicked in the ribs, whacked on the head (hence the blood) and pepper-sprayed. I’m not saying I was a saint during that altercation, but I’ve got a feeling I did much less damage to them than they did to me. I’m not a violent person, but when you see an unarmed person of diminutive stature get hit with a baton at full force for sticking their finger up at an officer, it’s extremely hard not to react.
For a year and a half now, I’ve had a black cloud looming over me. I ended up deciding to plead guilty to violent disorder, as some kind of weird bargaining tactic to minimise the damage. I chose this because it seemed more logical to feign remorse, and take a guaranteed but minimised stretch, than to gamble with a trial and face up to six years. I can have more of an influence outside than in, so the less amount of time I spend in there the better. On my return, I’m going to make sure it doesn’t end here, they’ve made a strong enemy for themselves. Their primitive system of punishment will bite them in the ass, and I’m going to make sure it really fucking hurts.
Speaker Announcement 
Join NHS Staff, activists and campaigners on 18 Jan as we march in Solidarity with all NHS Staff taking strike action!
14:30 Assemble UCLH, NW1 2BU
15:00 March to Downing Street
16:00 Rally 
We're delighted to welcome NHS Workers Say No as signatories on our letter calling on UK leaders to declare a 
