{"id":89912,"date":"2021-03-23T16:41:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T16:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=1148344"},"modified":"2021-03-23T16:41:15","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T16:41:15","slug":"the-real-story-of-the-siege-of-bristols-bridewell-police-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/23\/the-real-story-of-the-siege-of-bristols-bridewell-police-station\/","title":{"rendered":"The real story of the siege of Bristol\u2019s Bridewell police station"},"content":{"rendered":"
The message from the streets of Bristol on Sunday couldn’t have been clearer. The fight against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill<\/a> has started. And people are ready to struggle against it tooth and nail.<\/p>\n On Sunday 21 March thousands<\/a> of people joined a #KillTheBill demonstration in Bristol, part of a weekend of action that saw protests held in many<\/a> UK cities. By the end of the day in Bristol, at least three police vehicles were on fire, while a hundreds-strong crowd laid siege to a police station.<\/p>\n The protesters have been called<\/a> a “mob of animals” by Avon & Somerset Police, and ‘thugs’ by Priti Patel. Politicians from Labour<\/a> and the Green Party<\/a> were quick to line up to express their condemnation too.<\/p>\n If you’re looking for more condemnation, you won’t find it here. The people who besieged Bridewell Police station were fighting against state violence and authoritarianism, standing up for freedom and for the oppressed. We need to carry on resisting the bill, and standing with those arrested<\/a>.<\/p>\n Several Canary <\/em>reporters joined the protests on the streets of Bristol throughout the day. Here’s the real story of what happened on 21 March.<\/p>\n Under the cover of a national health emergency, the Tory government has launched the biggest attack on our freedoms since the Public Order Acts of the ‘80s<\/a> and ‘90s<\/a>. The controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill<\/a> passed<\/a> its second reading in parliament last week. The bill will give the police unprecedented draconian<\/a> powers to arrest protesters, and will criminalise trespass<\/a>, effectively outlawing<\/a> the livelihoods of the UK’s Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.<\/p>\n The timing of the bill’s passage through parliament is no coincidence, coming during the UK’s strictest ever lockdown where protest is completely banned<\/a>. The government must have hoped that people’s attention would be on the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis, and that even if people did notice, they wouldn’t be able to take to the streets. It was wrong.<\/p>\n Footage<\/a> of police brutalising women<\/a> at a vigil for Sarah Everard spurred more people to take to the streets against the bill in the days before its second reading. As protests erupted in London<\/a> and across the UK<\/a>, the government announced<\/a> that the bill’s progress through parliament would be delayed. But that didn’t stop people’s anger from spilling onto the streets.<\/p>\n At 2pm on Sunday 21 March, thousands<\/a> of people gathered on Bristol’s College Green to protest the bill. They were met straightaway by police officers filming them. Avon & Somerset Police announced<\/a> later that day that they planned to prosecute people retrospectively.<\/p>\n The crowd was the largest<\/a> seen in Bristol since last June’s Black Lives Matter demonstration, where Bristolians pulled<\/a> down a statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the River Avon. Their action has been widely celebrated<\/a> in Bristol, but Priti Patel called<\/a> it “sheer vandalism”. The proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill<\/a> includes a clause that makes<\/a> damaging national monuments punishable by up to ten years in prison.<\/p>\n The march made its way through central Bristol, accompanied by a samba band and sound systems. As the demonstration reached Castle Park at around 4pm, it became apparent that the marchers weren’t going to be willing to be pushed around by the police. Police officers moved in to give warnings to a small group of protesters sitting in the road. The crowd quickly rushed to their aid, seeing the police off with sheer force of numbers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the evening drew on, police unsuccessfully tried to clear protesters off the streets. According to a statement<\/a> by Bristol Anarchist Federation:<\/p>\n as things were dying down that police manhandled and attempted to remove a protester who was sitting down. It was after this provocation, at about 6pm that those still up for marching headed down the hill next to the Galleries towards Bristol\u2019s central police station \u2013 Bridewell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n When the crowd arrived at the police station, a group of “young”<\/a> people reportedly<\/a> sat down outside the station and chanted. According<\/a> to the report by the Anarchist Federation:<\/p>\n At this point, approaching 6.40pm the police had a choice, line up defensively to protect their station perhaps even pull back a little, or escalate and create a dangerous and increasingly violent situation. They chose the latter, and sent in the dogs, literally in the case of the canine units who would soon deploy, and metaphorically in the case of the human officers who baton charged the crowd, striking at the heads of those standing, kicking folks on the floor, and even hitting a young woman sat on the floor hands raised telling them this was a peaceful protest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nKill the Bill<\/h5>\n
What really happened in Bristol<\/h5>\n
‘