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Police intimidate public to curb rallies
A top British human rights lawyer has condemned the treatment of last year´s student protestors saying officials apparently aim to “intimidate” the public to curb political protests.
Press T.V: Michael Mansfield QC said the police used “heavy-handed” tactics against students just as they treated miners during the strikes of the Thatcher era.
Mansfield said the police and the judiciary are using “outrageous” tactics against both political rallies and peaceful protests.
Mansfield who has participated in prominent and controversial court cases and inquests involving the accused bombers in the IRA Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings, the Bloody Sunday incident, and the deaths of Jean Charles de Menezes and Diana, Princess of Wales said he is now to take on the controversial case of the 20-year-old student protestor Alfie Meadows.
Meadows was hit by a police truncheon during London tuition fee protests last December when he was trying to leave a police kettling area.
His case turned into an embarrassment for the police as the force later emerged to have tried to prevent him from checking into a hospital where officers were being treated.
At the time and in the context of a number of protests against the police brutal treatment of the university philosophy student, the Independent Police Complaints Commission pledged to launch an investigation into his case.
Yet the police later said Meadows is awaiting trial on charges of violent disorder raising eyebrows within the public and the human rights activists.
Mansfield said the government is effectively impinging on the people´s right to protest and peaceful demonstrators now have to brace for brutal policing tactics and draconian sentencing.
"We praise those in the Arab spring and condemn the force used against them by their governments, yet allow our own rights to be eroded," he said.
"A direct attack is being made on the right of people to go out on the streets and show their solidarity and unity with others of the same opinion and hold peaceful protest," he added.
Mansfield also said that the treatment of protestors by the police and the judiciary is a continuation of the “shameful tradition” that “was going on during the miners´ strike”.
"A shameful tradition … of riot squads or tactical support groups or response units, whatever you want to call them. They go in hard and heavy, and the whole idea is to intimidate, not those who are not intending to commit crime, but those who are presenting opposition to the government," he said.
"When there is a culture of a unit, they share a uniform, they share an ethos, things can get out of control and that is something that has run from Blair Peach through to Ian Tomlinson [the newspaper vendor who died after being attacked by a police officer] and I fear the police still haven´t got their heads round this at all,” he added
Mansfield who is a possible candidate for the chancellorship of Cambridge University said the unease over the lawful protests and the consequent treatment of student protestors is part of “a very strong consciousness in the echelons of power of making examples of people".
End.
Last Updated: 8 August 2011
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