I've just read on the front page of 'The Metro', the free rag that's given out in Manchester and is ubiquitous on buses, that 'one polceman said bags of bleach were thrown at officers in Soho'. No statements by protestors are given.

Now I know this is total bollox but such disinformation, carefully placed, is very effective for the forces of 'law and order'. This sort of bullshit needs to be challenged. Who is their source? Where was the reporter at the time? Are bodies like the Press Complaints Commission equiped to deal with this sort of nonsense? And if not why not?

It was such a blatant piece of propaganda masquerading as reporting that we need to be seriously thinking about ways in which we can challenge this sort of stuff. Left unchallenged it will get worse as we become more effective.

i was in soho last night and i witnesed most of the "goings on".
first,id say the cops were not near as bad as previous years when they have just attacked people and beat the living shit out of them for no reason,but they were still pigs,and they were still complete moody moraless thug bastards with no sense of humour.
we tried to push out of the area a quite a few times,
i think that the pushing of the police lines every so often was what kept spirits up and stopped us from getting bored and fed up. it wasnt fighting....just pushing,and it was mostly in good humour it seemed.
during the evening id noticed a few groups of 15-16 year old kids,some wearing gap shirts and nike caps and i was listening to them talking,
it was obvious that they couldnt even spell CAPITALISM and they were just there to fight the cops,
but they really had no idea,they were pushing forward and obviously hurting protesters.then i saw them throwing glass bottles,which didnt even hit the police,i saw at least two bottles hit protesters on the head-which seemed to amuse the kids. i noticed quite a few more lots of people like this,it pissed me off,but i new the manor in which the cops would let us leave,so i was pretty sure they would get knicked.
apart from that it was all good natured in there.
im not sure what happened when the first uniformed cops were swapped with riot cops,but i noticed how the mcdonalds window (that had been gaurded by cops all the way along half an hour earlier)was left unguarded as soon as the riot police came in.
i know the coppers are thick,
but leaving two large window panes of a mcd's unguarded at an anti capitalist protest...just at the time when the uniformed cops are being swapped with the more intimidating tooled up cops ...and then having a bit of a push around,
......it sounds a tiny bit too thick,
so its blatently obvious what happened to the window,
and its blatently obvious why the window was left there in the open to get smashed,
and its obvious that this gave the cops an excuse to seal off the area/bring in the bigpigs and have an excuse for whatever they decide to do.
they cant let the day be completely peacefull,
they have to discredit the movement somehow.
fuck em.
but i gotta say......from what i saw.....
the cops were nowhere near as disgustingly and openly brutal as usual,
but they did manage to be complete cunts anyway.
i had a great day,
fun fun fun.




(i appologise for the form of what ive written
still no sleep since b4 mayday/brain not working properly)

There was a brilliant atmosphere to begin with - lots of happy people, dancing along to the samba band. Eventually a heavy police presence, but that was to be expected as it was a 'central base'; but everything was cool - even when it
started to rain.

Slowly, the atmosphere changed - normal uniformed officers
were replaced with riot cops who - I guess pissed off about sitting in vans all day with nothing to do - started to become quite aggressive, pushing and shoving with their shields. A S60 had been threatening for a while, but as
long as everyone was moving, they couldn't block us in.

Then, the samba band stopped and we were quickly penned on the intersection of Old Compton Street/Dean Street. The cops were very aggressive. I went to one of their lines and asked to speak with the Officer in Charge, and to be told why I was being detained.

All I was met with was snide comments; I was also informed I didn't need to bother myself with the law. I persisted and offered myself for a search. Again, nothing. Then one particular chap - a Sgt from the TSG - got really pissed off with me. I kept asking him for information (again and again), which he refused to give me. I then informed him that I was legally entitled to use reasonable force to exit from an illegal cordon and tried several times to push my way through the line. Didn't work, of course - just kept getting smacked back with shields.

Then the Sgt lost it - jumped through the line, dragged me back through and slammed me up against a shop front. Performed a pat down search, roughly man-handling me all the
while. He then went through my bag - tipping everything out on the wet pavement (phone, camera, etc included) and then proceeded to take one of the TACT leaflets I had as he "wanted to read it".

I informed him he was allowed to search for large weapons, but nothing else, and that he couldn't 'steal' literature from me, nor ask me my name and address (whic, of course, I didn't give), nor take my photo. All of those things were done, and he laughed all the while. I was then physically escorted (one on each arm) through two more police lines, then deposited outside the cordon. Apparently they were merely "facilitating my safe exit from the area". I'd call it assault.