Today on my lunch break I went to down to take some pictures of University Parks, which are all flooded. You can see those pictures by following this link.
On my way back I was coming past the building site where Oxford University is spending a large fortune to build a new complex in which men in white coats will torture monkeys and other primates. Anyway, there’s been a fairly long-term animal rights activist campaign against the new animal labs, some of it quite violent and destructive. Some – actually, a lot – of it is totally legitimate, peaceful protest (though all that somewhat begs the question about legitimate violence: the state may successfully claim the monopoly of legitimate violence, but that doesn’t makeits violence legitimate. And I once saw peaceful animal rights protesters being manhandled and thrown about by police just off Broad Street, and that looked like extremely illegitimate violence to me. But I digress).
The protests have decreased greatly of late, mostly because a) Oxford University has basically won, and the labs will be built, and b) the most vociferous and trouble-causing animal rights protesters are in prison. So what I saw today wasn’t much of a protest, it looked like this:
Click to enlarge, the photos don’t properly fit on the screen
I count no more than a dozen protesters.
The proportionate police response looked like this:
Plus 4 officers that are out of shot for reasons I will explain shortly. I count that as 8 officers, and 2 horses. So roughly as many State Law Enforcement Agents (assuming horses count only for one person) as protesters. Talk about evening the odds. But I can’t help thinking this is over-kill; i mean, half the protesters looked over 50 and they weren’t even doing their annoying, un-catchy and non-tuneful chants.
The reason, incidentally, that you’re only being shown half of the police presence is because these are the only pictures I got away with taking. An officer immediately came over and questioned me as to why I was taking pictures. I told him the honest truth (that I waste time on my blog) and he was OK with it, to a point. He was keen to inform me that there is a police injunction forbidding photography in that part of Oxford, and made it clear that if I took any more snaps I would be in trouble. I pointed out that the stuff they don’t want people filming – the new labs – were directly behind me when I was taking photos. Although I can’t lie and say he was actually rude or physically forceful, he basically told me to fuck off.
This is because the police don’t like you taking their picture. Which I find somewhat ironic, because on every legitimate and peaceful protest I’ve ever been on, the bastards have taken pictures of me.
18 January, 2008 at 1:35 am |
I was about to say that the police can’t tell you that you can’t take pictures of what they’re doing in public, but then I read the part about that injunction. I wonder what that’s all about. Then again, it seems the police in Britain and Europe tend to be, on the whole, a little more harsh than their American counterparts.
18 January, 2008 at 1:42 am |
“a little more harsh than their American counterparts.”
What the fuck? Ever heard of the Battle of Seattle mate? Get your facts straight.
18 January, 2008 at 2:43 am |
I said “on the whole”. I never said that you’d never get beaten by American cops.
I actually live in Seattle, and I think it’s crap that people paint the police in such a bad light. A good deal of those protesters were being overly violent. Police can’t afford to pick and choose when confronted by a riot.
18 January, 2008 at 1:09 pm |
I have a fair amount of experience with the police on demonstrations, having attended demos where the police outnumber the protestors, but the stuff they get away with regards to the animal rights lot is insane.
On the last prisoner support thing I got through, which lists anyone sent down for ‘political’ crimes, all the prisoners were animal rights activists.
Unfortunately I think one of the main problems in this respect is that many animal rights activists have been willing accomplices in their own demonisation which has limited public outrage against police tactics and left them politically isolated.
To put it bluntly, we need to roll back the frontiers of the state. The police and security services now occupy a prominent position in government and media. The tactics the police use now in relation to a variety of disparate groups they would have got away with 10, 20 or 40 years ago. This has to change.
18 January, 2008 at 1:26 pm |
“Unfortunately I think one of the main problems in this respect is that many animal rights activists have been willing accomplices in their own demonisation which has limited public outrage against police tactics and left them politically isolated.”
Without a doubt.
15 March, 2008 at 5:40 pm |
I know your blog’s on hiatus, but you might be interested in this:
http://crookedtimber.org/2008/03/14/standing-up-for-photographers-rights/