Last night I experienced, first hand, what it is like to be "kettled". Having been a researcher on criminal justice for the past 10 years this had particular poignancy. It was impossible not to feel the full force of dilemmas of balancing civil rights, protection of the public, the police's response to disorder and the role of the media in these events.
I went to the student fees protest in the late afternoon, a middle-aged protester with memories of student marches past, but when I got there at 3pm, three sides of Parliament Square were blocked off. I witnessed police on horseback twice charge into a crowd and young people coming out bloodied and shocked. I could only sympathise with the woman next to me whose 14-year-old was still inside the police lines. I followed a small, calm crowd round to Whitehall, where things seemed less fraught, but the next thing I knew police horses and officers were lined up behind me and pushing whoever happened to be in front of them, including someone who had just come from the National Gallery with his souvenir bag, down towards the square.
From that point, despite repeated pleas and tears (I am no courageous protester, I discovered), the police refused to let me go – for seven hours. I could not help but be shocked at my situation and at this police strategy. It was also clear from a number of conversations with officers that many of the frontline did not approve of this strategy either. Several told me they sympathised and blamed their senior officers. This is no survey but they could clearly see that most of us on that side of the square, now in an orderly queue stretching from Westminster Abbey to parliament and waiting to leave, were not causing disorder.
Kettling or containment is justified by the police as a response to dealing with disorder while minimising use of force. Certainly I am glad this protest was not a Tiananmen Square. British police do not shoot at crowds. And we need to recognise that and value that. There were clearly a number of people at the protest who were intent on causing trouble. There were also some seasoned protesters, some wanting to cause trouble, some trying to help people understand what was going on, some trying to organise ways of getting out. How can the police tell the difference?
Nevertheless, people joining an orderly queue can hardly be described as "disorderly". And after standing for over an hour in that queue only to be told they were not to be released a startling number of people did go over to the other side of the square, possibly to join in the vandalism of the Treasury. If so, then the decision not to release people, who were peacefully trying to leave, inflamed the situation, which is the key criticism of this strategy.
On the other side of the square, myself and a large crowd remained huddled in the cold for seven hours, with no food, no water, no toilets, no access to medical attention and with minors unable to get home. For 15-year-olds in T-shirts, and older people (I saw at least two men in their late 60s and early 70s) this is no joke. Contravention of these basic rights by this approach to protest policing has been challenged in the courts in the past. The May Day 2001 protesters sued the Metropolitan police on the grounds of wrongful detention with no access to food, water and toilets. Though taken to appeal at the House of Lords, this case failed.
The dilemma remains: how do the police protect the rights and safety of protesters but also deal with a disorderly minority without using excessive force, or inflaming the situation? I am not sure I have the answer. All I know is that I was effectively put in danger and held without cause. That did not feel like the actions of a country that respected my rights.
There remains, however, another key protagonist in protest: the media. On getting home last night I was stunned to see journalists had not told the whole story of the protest that I witnessed. Instead, the focus on the attack on the royals and the Treasury, shocking though they are, have allowed for sensationalist coverage and tough talk. This seems to have left little room for debate about the appropriateness of these tactics, particularly against children.
It leaves no room for questioning the challenge to people's right to protest, either because you could not have joined a protest after 4.30pm when the police blocked access to Parliament Square or because this experience might put you off going again. Most of the media, rather than filming the long orderly queue on one side of the square calmly waiting to be let out – to no avail – concentrated on the people smashing things, who in turn justify their actions as the only way to get media attention. Where does that leave me and the 15-year-olds trying to go home to their parents? Without media and independent scrutiny of police tactics as well as the violence of some protesters, the rights of the rest of us are undermined.
Originally Posted by agamemnus
Reply With Quote
) to leave the area of the protest, and asking the police politely to do so. What reason is there to keep the peaceful element of the protest in one confined area when they want to leave peacefully, long after the actual protest is over? 
