“Too Many Kettles, Not Enough Tea”
Article published: Tuesday, December 14th 2010
Last Thursday I went to exercise my right to demonstrate peacefully in Parliament Square. Having lived in the UK for the last 6 years and hoping to be able to fully settle in this country sometime soon, I was naturally outraged by the education cuts and fees raise the current administration was planning to introduce. Not only have I benefited from the educational system that now seems at jeopardy, but my professional future is also tied in to its survival.
Expecting to join a huge crowd of marchers I was first shocked to discover that I had to go through various lines of policemen in order to join a very static crowd. It seems needless to say that I was not warned, at 2pm, when I joined the protesters at Parliament Square that that I was not going to be able to leave (for the next nine hours). In fact I had plans for the night, which had to be cancelled. The first few hours went by very peacefully with people dancing, playing drums and socialising despite being kettled in the square, all six exits being completely blocked by various lines of police. Some people even commented that the atmosphere resembled more a festival than a demonstration.
However, later in the afternoon around 3:30pm some people tried to leave in the direction of Victoria Street but the police were not letting them through. There started to be some clashes (I could only see it from a distance) as the crowd tried to push and break through the blockage and the police tried to contain it. It is true that some small sticks were thrown at policemen, but the response of the police, naturally better equipped (a good number of them mounted on horses), was very disproportionate. At some point the crowd panicked and started running away: police broke into the crowd on horse and then started charging with their batons. Next thing I saw was three people, their faces completely drenched in their own blood, their hair red and dripping. They were unarmed and from their attitude and attire (no attempt to cover their faces or hide their identity) unlikely to be the ones making any kind of trouble; they were just victims of a brutal and indiscriminate attack.
Very little of this incident, which happened in the afternoon and before the vote took place in the house of commons, has been showed in the media. It is sad that most cameras were on the police’s side, and I don’t mean this metaphorically but very literally. Most journalist and photographers were behind the police and therefore were only able to portray how things were seen from the police’s (very physical and literal) perspective. Thus, the panic generated by fifteen mounted policemen breaking into a crowd and the indiscriminate charging described above have gone unrepresented.
Things quieted down for a couple of hours again as people gathered to listen to the news coming from the House of Parliament. We learned of the result of the vote and shouting our last slogans, peacefully as ever, we intended to leave. Then we found out that the Whitehall exit, which we heard was previously open was completely blocked. Riots broke out there but I did not witness them since, realising that we were going to be stuck in Parliament Square for a while, went to warm myself by one of the fires.
A definite turning point happened when a few started to throw stones at the Treasury’s windows and later even tried to break in. This was a particularly shocking event, since the police outnumbered us hugely and they could certainly have stopped this happening. A friend suggested later that the police might have deliberately want people to attack the Treasury in order to legitimise their violence, which has been portrayed in a fragmentary and confusing fashion in the media. Footage was taken of windows being smashed but the police was nowhere to be seen. Many would have liked to have left long before then but there was no way to get out. People seemed to be let out, one by one, at the Victoria Street exit but the police, who had at least three lines blocking the road, did this very slowly and not letting anyone out for long periods of time. We tried to leave, unsuccessfully, by queuing for at least half an hour but were given no information. There were massive queues in the Victoria Street exit.
As far as we knew the people involved in the Treasury riots and in previous act of violence were arrested. The ones left in the Square were people who had demonstrated peacefully and abiding by the law. It seems needless to say that the media’s favourite incident, featuring in most headlines tonight and today, the attacking of the car carrying the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, which left the royal couple unharmed, was completely unknown to us. At that point we tried to leave the square by the Victoria Street exit but we were told by policemen that “It might take a little while”. Afterwards we were told that Westminster Bridge was open and that we should go there but as we could realise as soon as we tried to exit that way it wasn’t quite true. We were given contradictory orders and no information. No one could leave in any direction, we were held as hostages in Parliament Square. A very young protester supplicated a policeman to arrest him, since there was going to be no charges against him anyway and he would get home quicker that way.
Then, suddenly, all the policemen blocking the three northern exits started marching towards us, without previous announcement, shouting at us in manner of Mel Gibson as William Wallace, handling us like cattle. We were herded into Westminster Bridge around 9pm in this way as some started to shout “We will be back”. A bit too soon. We were held in Westminster Bridge for two hours until 11pm, more or less. The conditions there were like those of a prison camp. Both ends of the bridge were kettled by numerous policemen, which sandwiched us in the middle. It was very cold and there was not enough space to sit down, we had to stand for two hours in the chilly breeze of the Thames. There was very little room to move, some of us had not eaten or drank any liquids for hours and, needless to say, there were no toilets. We were denied basic human rights for no apparent reason. We were given no information about what was happening or was going to happen to us. As I said before, at this point the only people left were those who had demonstrated peacefully throughout the day. We felt we were being punished for exercising our lawful right to demonstrate. If this wasn’t illegal it certainly was immoral.
After two hours in the conditions I just described, we were let out, one by one, as police officers filmed us. We started to learn that BBC and other media were not reporting the way we were treated in Westminster Bridge as they only focused on Prince Charles and his paint-splashed car. I became further outraged when I reached home after midnight and went through the web pages of a few British newspapers and TV stations. The news seemed to be speaking of a different reality, certainly not the one I had experienced throughout the day. As I spoke with friends, who were worried about the fragmented information coming out of Parliament Square, we commented how many of the people writing and editing the news would not have been on the spot, as we were. Thus, I feel it is terribly important that everyone who was there last Thursday speaks up and writes their stories. Let us not only exercise the right to demonstrate, but also the right to represent and defend ourselves. If our voices and stories are not heard we are at the mercy of those who have a vested interested to makes us all appear as criminals.
If the Prime Minister believes, as he says, in the right to demonstrate peacefully, we ask him and his administration to let us exercise it freely, without being punished for it, as we were last Thursday. From all the shocking sights of last Thursday one thing seems certain to me: if this is their way of coercing us into consent it is only going to generate more resistance.
Enrique Galván-Álvarez
London, United Kingdom
December 10 2010
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