Free Pussy Riot!

Pussy Riot v Vladimir Putin

Free Pussy Riot supporter in Barcelona

A man dies from a tumour, so how can a country survive with growths like labour camps and exiles? — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The outrage across the world has been nothing short of phenomenal!

On Friday, three members of the feminist punk group Pussy Riot were sentenced in a Stalin-era show trial to two years in prison for staging a peaceful protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin inside an Orthodox church. A judge rejected the argument their act was a form of political protest, instead ruling it was motivated by religious hatred. As the verdict came down Friday, solidarity protests took place in more than 60 cities around the world marking Global Pussy Riot Day.

The Pussy Riot case was seen as a key test of how far Putin would go to crackdown on dissidents during his third stint as president.

What message does it send to the world when the three young women are held in chains, in a cage with bars, then a glass cage, in court for 12 hours a day, not allowed breaks to go to the toilet or to eat, back to prison for five hours, but not to sleep as the only time to prepare their case.

Two years in a penal colony, a slave labour camp, for singing a protest song.

Imprisoned and persecuted writers have PEN, we now need something similar for musicians.

Has nothing changed in Russia since Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote Cancer Ward and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich?

Is the Kremlin so corrupt and rotten that Pussy Riot brings it crumbling to the ground?

Russia has a collapsing economy. It needed oil at $40 a barrel, it now needs oil at $150 a barrel. Investors will avoid Russia like the plague.

• Why Vladimir Putin Needs Higher Oil Prices

Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union by forcing an arms race it could not afford and dragging into a war in Afghanistan it could not sustain. Vladimir Putin is now bankrupting Russia by making promises he cannot honour and presiding of a kleptocracy that is robbing the country.

Vladimir Putin is turning Russia into a pariah state. He has backed Assad in the slaughter of the Syrian people, now he is persecuting Pussy Riot for singing a protest song.

Please sign the global petitions in support of Pussy Riot:

http://www.allout.org/en/actions/russianriot

We are all Pussy Riot. You cannot kill an idea.

• First They Came For The Communists
• Tell Russia To Release Pussy Riot!
• Pussy Riot is just the start of the fight for free speech in Russia
• The true blasphemy: Slavoj Žižek on Pussy Riot
• After Pussy Riot, artists everywhere must stand up for each other
• Russian police searching for 2 more Pussy Riot members
• Pussy Riot copycats booted from German cathedral (VIDEO)
• Stephen Fry publishes two-page open letter of support for jailed Pussy Riot members
• Reading the Riot Act
• Punk Band Pussy Riot Crashes Investment Case
• Strummer of Love – Free Pussy Riot – BAND PETITION
• Support for «Pussy Riot» from Latvia
• We Are All Pussy Riot, We Are All Waiting To Happen
• The Priest Who Beat Pussy Riot: The Orthodox Point Man with the Kremlin

Garry Kasparov beaten by police outside Pussy Riot trial

Garry Kasparov beaten by police outside Pussy Riot trial

Garry Kasparov beaten by police outside Pussy Riot trial

Garry Kasparov was speaking to reporters outside the Moscow courthouse where the sentencing of the band Pussy Riot was taking place. Suddenly he was violently seized by police and forced onto a bus. Later he was beaten by a group of police. The police department has announced they are investigating whether Kasparov bit and injured an officer. The officer in question is highlighted in this video striking Kasparov with his fist. At no time during or after beating Kasparov does the officer show any sign of injury. The officer stays at the scene after Kasparov is forced onto the bus for the second time and the officer uses both of his hands to adjust his vest.

It is a dark day for Russia.

Three members of Pussy Riot get put on a show trial which bring echoes back to the dark days of Stalin.

Supporters of Pussy Riot outside the court get beaten and dragged away by the police, including former world chess chess champion Garry Kasparov who was in the process of giving a media interview.

• Pussy Riot show trial
• Putin Lights Up the Fires – Pussy Riot
• We are one Clit! Free Pussy Riot!
• Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov dragged away from massive protest as Russia jails Pussy Riot trio for two years for hooliganism in ‘show trial’
• Pussy Riot: Garry Kasparov arrested outside Moscow court

London 2012 opening ceremony a celebration of democracy meanwhile outside

London 2012 Critical Mass cycle ride

On Friday, we were all thrilled by the opening ceremony, well all thrilled except one Member of Parliament who attends parties where the dress code is Nazi uniform. We saw suffragettes, we celebrated the NHS, we saw winged cyclists.

Meanwhile outside it was business as usual. A Critical Mass cycle ride seen by some as protest at the Zil Lanes but in reality simply to exercise the right to cycle on the public highway was brutally attacked by the police. The police reaction was totally over the top. The police could have simply let the cyclists pass through, point made, and that would have been the end of the matter but that sadly is not the way the mentality of the Met works.

Something like 200 cyclists were arrested. They were held on a bus all night without food or drink whilst they waited to be processed.

Mass arrests for the heinous crime of “cycling in a group north of the river Thames” on the opening night of an Olympics, which is supposed to be promoting access to sport and active travel, sends a clear message about how committed Games organisers Locog are to any legacy other than a financial one.

A diverse group of people attempting to celebrate their right to use the road safely and in an environmentally friendly manner , which they have been doing for several years and even won the right to do so in the House of Lords, should be promoted by the Olympics, rather than persecuted for fear of their creating a four or five minute delay on the precious Zil Lanes. As Critical Mass is a long-running sporting tradition in London and many other cities across the world, Locog should have made sure they accommodated it — the Olympics are disrupting normal life in the city enough already without infringing the rights of the participants in one of few sporting events which no one is able to make a profit from.

On Friday 27th July, 182 cyclists were held in a police kettle for two hours, handcuffed in buses for three hours, and held in a police cell from six hours to two days. These included a 13 year old boy. Police also confirmed the cyclists reports that CS gas was used during these arrests.

Out of 182 cyclists, only 3 have been charged with any offence. However, ALL have bail conditions imposed on them until September 18th 2012 restricting their freedom to move, assemble, associate and live their lives.

We have the following demands:

1. All bail conditions should be discharged
2. All data including DNA, fingerprint, addresses etc taken from those cyclists should be removed from all paper and comupter records of police & other agencies
3. An independent review of the thuggish police behaviour on Friday 27th July should be conducted as a matter of urgency

All this for continuing the 18 year tradition of a bike ride through the streets of London on the last Friday of every month.

Some of those arrested were nothing to do with the Critical Mass cycle ride. They simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time on a bike (which in the eyes of the Met is a heinous crime requiring cuffing and detention).

This political policing to crush dissent and restrict people’s rights without charge must be stoppped. Help us stand for a police and legal system which we can believe in, please sign our petition today:

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/metropolitan-police-criminal-justice-system-uk-justice-for-the-critical-mass-182

Bradley Wiggins, the first Brit to win the Tour de France, has increased awareness and interest in cycling. A massive own goal by the Met.

Was this the image London 2012 wanted broadcast around the world on the opening night, police brutality against a bunch of cyclists?

Critical Mass is a mass cycle ride that takes place around the world on the last Friday of the month.

• The Total Policing of Critical Mass – An Eye Witness Report
• Cycling arrests raise questions about legacy Olympic organisers want to leave
• Celebrating protest inside the Olympic Games while stopping it outside
• Critical Mass arrests: police charge three
• Mass arrests at monthly cycling event in London on Olympic ceremony night (VIDEO, PHOTOS)

Protest the dominant theme of 2011

St Paul's in-the-camp Time Out picture of the year 2011

here to stay

root out usury

Christmas Bishop of London at St Paul's in-the-Camp

As 2011 draws to a close, Occupy and Arab Spring were the defining moments. Historians will note the date when one world changed to another, no longer were ordinary people prepared to be kicked around by corrupt politicians in the pocket of Big Businesses.

Strictly speaking the Arab Spring started in Tunisia as 2010 drew to a close, but it really took off in Tahrir Square at the beginning of the year. Mubarak has gone but the job is not yet finished, the ruling military elite has yet to be toppled. In Libya a job well done, but unfortunately much blood was shed. In Syria, work in progress, Assad has a simple choice, hand himself over to the ICC or leave with a bullet in the head. In Yemen, unfinished businesses. In Saudi Arabia the corrupt House of Saud has yet to be toppled or the Mullahs and Ayatollahs in Iran.

- Syria troops ‘clash with Damascus activists’

Occupy started in Spain when the young unemployed occupied the centre of Madrid. It quickly spread to New York, then around the world. Brutal crackdowns in the US. In the UK St Paul’s in-the-Camp has spread to an estimated 60 camps around the country. Contrary to the smear stories in the media, it never was the camp v St Paul’s and the clergy are working closely with the camp. St Paul’s in-the-Camp has revitalised the church, made them recognise the core values of Christianity. Contrary to smears in the media, church attendance up not down.

- Freedom to protest
- St Paul’s plans for lasting legacy of Occupy protest
- Archbishop of Wales urges church to ‘get hands dirty’ in the fight against poverty and injustice
- The origins of Christmas
- The Nativity of Our Lord
- Attendances prove Christmas surprise

On Christmas day the Bishop of London delivered a box of chocolates to the camp outside St Paul’s. The year will end with a reading of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol at 6pm this evening on the steps of St Paul’s.

- Protesters celebrate Christmas, as judge postpones decision
- An Occupy reading of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’
- Occupy London presents a reading of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – 6pm Friday 30 December at the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral
- Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol especially adapted for Occupy London
- New Year’s Eve Weekend at Occupy London – Make it count!

As Dickens’ bicentennial approaches, it seems only fitting for Occupy London to stage a public reading of A Christmas Carol at St Paul’s Cathedral. Dickens was compelled to write A Christmas Carol out of a strong desire to comment on the enormous gap between the rich and poor in Victorian Britain. It is a similar strength of conviction that has motivated the growth of the Occupy movement to work to transform the growing social, economic and political injustices of our time. As Giles Fraser, former Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral said:

Christmas is the most political of the Church’s festivals … all politics is about people, and without a fundamental sympathy for the plight of other human beings, and in particular for the dispossessed, no political movement for social change is ever going to capture the heart. For Dickens, Christmas was the emotional centre of the big society. Peace on earth and goodwill to all.

Arab Spring and Occupy have become key words and phrases of 2011. St Paul’s in-the-Camp picture of the year for Time Out. Time Magazine proclaimed this year’s Person of the Year to be “the Protester”. Five of the Top 10 Most Commented Stories this year in the New York Times were about Occupy wall Street!

- New words: the official* glossary of 2011
- Best of 2011: pictures of the year – Occupy London camp
- The Protester

In Leeds, when the unaccountable town council announced £90 million cuts protesters stormed the council chamber, then Occupy Leeds arrived.

- 2011: when year of global protests became local in Leeds
– Quiet in the August troubles; but Occupy looks here to stay

UK Uncut has forced tax dodging up the political agenda. A damning report on HMRC by a House of Commons Select Committee. The Head of HMRC forced to resign, with effect next year. UK Uncut and Occupy London Stock Exchange have exposed the City of London as one of the few remaining Rotten Boroughs.

- The tax haven in the heart of Britain

Who would have thought Russians would have taken to the streets in their tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands to call for democratic accountability and to call upon Vladimir Putin to go?

Not all good news.

There has been coups in Greece and Italy. Italy no longer has a democratically elected government, it has a government put in place by EU and German bankers. A government to serve the banks and EU not the people of Italy. In Greece the government is acting for the EU and bankers not the Greek people.

Ryanair refused to allow a passenger on his way home for Christmas to board a flight to Malaga. Hints of terrorism. Yet one more reason to boycott Ryanair.

- Occupy protester ‘banned’ from flight home for Christmas

Iraq is descending into Hell.

- The Truth as Iraq descends into Hell

Occupy has inspired poetry.

- Jesus was born in an empty building
- Occupy
- Oh St Pauls, why?

For Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho 2011 was a very good year, his latest book, the biographical Aleph released last year in Brazil, shot straight to No 1 in every country published. The noticeable exception was in the UK thanks to High Street bookshop chain Waterstone’s deliberately choosing not to put Aleph on display.

- What a year!

As 2011 draws to a close there is still much unfinished business. The list is long, libraries closures, cuts in public services, Welfare to Work programmes, privatisation of the health service …

- How to help disabled people fight the welfare reform bill

I will give but one example.

Lincoln City Council has decided to put a heritage site, The Lawn, up for sale. Set in a 8 acre site, this museum complex was a pioneering mental hospital, it now houses the Sir Joseph Banks Conservatory. Sir Joseph Banks was chief scientific officer on the Endeavour, established Kew gardens, President of the Royal Society. The Lawn is the ideal site for Occupy Lincoln.

- Not for Sale! Hands off our Lawn!

As we head into 2012, the fight goes on …

Happy New Year!

Jesus was born in an empty building

Brilliant poetry reading on the life of Jesus at St Paul’s in-the-Camp.

Jesus was a protester by Catherine Brogan.

For Lina to bring a smile to her face.

Top story SPOT – a poetry paper (Friday 24 December 2011).

Egypt: Army thugs attack protesters

burning building

Tahrir Square

Tahrir Square

Thousands upon thousands entering Tahrir Square

Army soldiers just came into apartment we are at and took cameras from us. — Sharif Kouddous

Starting Friday morning, and for the last two days, army and security thugs have been attacking protesters, rocks have been hurled off buildings, live rounds fired, tents in Tahrir Square burnt, at least one building set ablaze.

It was not only protesters who were attacked, the media was attacked too, cameras confiscated and destroyed.

The Military Council must be overthrown. Why are the politicians silent?

The Arab Spring started a year ago in Tunisia.

- A third day of violence in Tahrir Square

Block the Bridge

Save our NHS - Westminster Bridge

Block the Bill - Westminster Bridge

Sunday afternoon people from all over the country occupied Westminster Bridge in protest at cuts and privatisation of the National Health Service.

On the eve of the protest I thought, why not the police let protesters occupy the bridge, it is after all public highway. For once intelligent policing, and that is what happened. Maybe because the police facing 20% cuts and in the same boat. Sadly though they did blot their copy book later by directing protesters off the bridge into a kettle on Lambeth Bridge.

Coverage of Block the Bridge by BBC Radio 4 news was a disgrace. A brief mention on a couple of on-the-hour two-minute news bulletins and that was it.

No mention on the garbage Westminster Hour. The real world occupies Westminster Bridge and yet not a mention. Nor a mention on the midnight news.

- We won’t take this lying down: Thousands of demonstrators force Westminster Bridge to close with protest over Government health reforms

I recall my grandmother talking about days before the NHS, dreading anyone falling ill and a visit from the doctor and having to pay the doctor. We do not wish to see a return to those grim days.

- I remember a pre-NHS Britain. I don’t want to see a post-NHS one

But already, in Yorkshire, patients are being charged for minor surgery. They are referred to a private company which surprise surprise, they find is owned by their own company.

In Farnborough, doctors and dentists have been told to refer patients to a hospital in Basingstoke, not the nearby Frimley Park. Patients are being denied patient choice and when they try to exercise that choice are being told they have to go to Basingstoke.

- Farnborough patients denied patient choice

Yes, there are need for reforms. Consultants should be stopped from using the NHS to tout for business. Sorry a three month wait, but if you wish to bribe me, oops I mean pay me, you can be seen next week as my private patient.

Charlie Veitch discussing his arrest

In a pre-crime arrest, Charlie Veitch was one of many dissidents arrested in the run-up to the Royal Wedding.

In true Orwellian tradition, these arrests were carried out in the name of democracy.

Just in case the message had not got through that dissent would not be tolerated, facebook political groups were deleted!

- Preemptive arrests
- Political policing of dissent

Preemptive arrests

Police detain a woman in Oxford Street dressed as a zombie

In the run-up to the Royal Wedding there has been preemptive arrests of people. You might do something therefore we better arrest you.

- Royal wedding: police use section 60 to deter anarchists
- Political policing in Britain ahead of the Big Day

Others have been excluded from London for the day.

For weeks, senior police officers have been boasting that anyone planning to voice dissent at the Royal Wedding will be treated as a criminal with sinister warnings that officers have been ordered to “shoot-to-kill” and the Queen’s Guard empowered to impale any threat with their bayonets. With the memories of Jean Charles de Menezes and Iain Tomlinson still fresh, such warnings sound more than a little ominous.

- Wedding party-poopers warned off
- We can protect William and Kate on their big day

If nothing else, this explains why UK Uncut put a message out on twitter saying they had no action planned for the day. At the time I was puzzled.

A couple of bizarre stories have surfaced recently claiming UK Uncut is planning to disrupt the Royal Wedding. This is not the case.

UK Uncut has nothing to do with any plans to protest at the wedding. All actions are announced publicly on our website.

As Laurie Pennie said on twitter:

Police have been building for this all week, saying they’ll pre-arrest people who are planning to disrupt the royal wedding. But noone is!

One such person arrested was Charlie Veitch, who was arrested in Cambridge on Thursday. From the number of police involved anyone would think this was a leading mafiosa being arrested, a terrorist plot maybe.

- Charlie Veitch Arrested In Pre-Crime Raid Prior to Royal Wedding
- Man arrested in Cambridge for royal wedding protest plan

No one seems to know where Charlie is being held, not even his lawyer.

The police circulated rumours that on the day anarchists would carry out dastardly acts. Rumours the complicit and compliant mainstream press regurgitated as fact.

On the day itself, a woman was arrested in Oxford Street in London for dressing as a zombie. Her ‘crime’, wearing a t-shirt saying ‘marry me instead’.

And do not even think of singing in Soho Square ‘We all live in a fascist regime’, to the tune of ‘We all live in a Yellow Submarine’ as the plain clothes police will swoop and bundle you away.

- Royal wedding: police criticised for pre-emptive strikes against protesters

Imagine the outcry if this was happening in Egypt, Libya or Syria.

It all seems to be part of a coordinated clampdown on political dissent. The cops busting a squat in Bristol in a manner more typical of a major drugs bust. Last weekend I was held in a police kettle in Brighton. The reason I was held was that I had in my hand a leaflet explaining what were your rights if held by the police!

- Kettled in Brighton

Is it mere coincidence that 50 facebook accounts that could be deemed political were shut down today? Contrary to what most people think, facebook is not a neutral platform.

- Over 50 political accounts deleted in Facebook purge
- Facebook forced to respond to our campaign for restoration of accounts
- Facebook accused of removing activists’ pages
- Disruption Talk

We now living in George Orwell’s Ninteen Eighty-four

Kettled in Brighton

inside the kettle

Easter bunnies against Fascists

English Defence League demo

I do not expect to arrive off a train in Brighton to find myself detained on the street in a police kettle! But that is what happened today.

I got off the train from Victoria a little after midday. Something was up. Police everywhere.

Before I knew it, I was held in a police kettle.

We can not let you leave, you are part of an assembly. No I am not, I said, I am walking down the road, or at least I was until I was held against my will on the street.

The officer pointed to the pink slip in my hand which I had been handed moments before as justification for my being detained. The pink slip informed me off my legal rights. Thus having a pink slip informing me of my legal rights if held on the street is justification for holding me on the street! If this is not political policing I do not know what is.

To be fair to the police, they were not heavy handed or aggressive, and they did have a problem of keeping apart two opposing demonstrations, and they did say once the other lot moved off, I could leave.

I was asked if I was press. Had I said yes, maybe I would have been allowed to leave, but I was honest and said no.

It was then announced everyone was being escorted to Victoria Gardens. Not having any wish to be escorted to Victoria Gardens, not even knowing where it was, I again tried to leave. This time I was stopped by a young inexperienced officer who did not appear to have two brain cells to rub together. He refused to let me leave on the grounds I should have left earlier!

I would have raised the matter with whoever was the senior officer in charge, but I spied a gap in the police lines, and so quickly exited.

I then walked to nearby Grocer and Grain. Outside in the side street, six police vans, including one parked on the corner on the double yellow lines.

I left Grocer and Grain about an hour later to continue on down to the sea front only this time I encountered the opposing demo, a bunch of moronic chanting thugs, otherwise known as the English Defence League.

Repugnant as they may be, English Defence League has the right to protest, to march. It does not though mean we have to listen. Let them march, let everyone see what an obnoxious bunch of clowns they are.

The counter-demo was naive to the point of stupidity. It was to inflate the importance of the EDL to a degree they neither deserve nor merit.

I thought kettles were now illegal and could only be used in extreme circumstances. This clearly has not yet filtered down to the Boys in Blue in Brighton.

- Kettled in Brighton
- Police warn Brighton and Hove protestors to behave at march
- Police pleased with Brighton protest operation
- EDL outnumbered in Brighton
- Nationalist march will return to Brighton