Rioting in London?

[HMS Sophia]

Is it just me or does Theresa May talk a lot of shit without answering any subjects. In this interview she seems to repeat her points over and over again without actually making a point beyond "our police will do their job"

[Dartzap]

Is it just me or does Theresa May talk a lot of shit without answering any subjects. In this interview she seems to repeat her points over and over again without actually making a point beyond "our police will do their job"

Yep, standard replies from someone who is unsure wtf is going on.

16,000 police to be on the streets of London tonight - thats 10,000 more than last night.

[HMS Sophia]

Yep, standard replies from someone who is insure wtf is going on.

16,000 police to be on the streets of London tonight - thats 10,000 more than last night.

They're being shipped in from everywhere. North Yorkshire is the furthest out that I've seen a report of.

Also, the gun found on Mark Duggan has been confirmed to be a real weapon, not a replica as was reported. He died of a single gun shot wound apparently.
Cameron has said "You will feel the full force of the law. And if you are old enough to commit these crimes you are old enough to face the punishments." Now lets see if he actually backs that one up, I don't want to see 'youth offenders' getting away with this shit just because of their age. As he says, they were old enough and stupid enough to do it, lets see them punished.

[K. A. Pital]

My take on that? Police provocation to clear out possible riot and protest leaders from poorest districts before the Olympics.

Are you freaking serious?

Such tactics have been used before to clear high-profile locations from "undesireables" so that a riot would not start during a high-publicity event. By the way, that's a regular police tactic (they don't like to speak about it, sure) to provoke "antisocial elements" to act and then crack down on them.

Italy: state attorneys expose police provocation at Genoa G-8 summit

In July of 2001, film clips of violent unrest on the fringes of the G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy were flashed all around the world. The port city witnessed violent conflicts between demonstrators and the Italian security forces. One demonstrator was killed, 600 injured, some seriously, and hundreds were arrested and held for several days.

At the time, those affected and their lawyers reported widespread police provocation and denounced the brutal methods of the security forces. Many of those arrested reported beatings and instances of torture. They complained that evidence had been manipulated and that statements had been extorted from prisoners under duress.

Reporters had observed and filmed supposed anarchists from the so-called “black bloc” engaging in discussions with the police, and then running amok without interference, thereby providing the pretext for attacks on peaceful demonstrators.

The government of right-wing media magnate Silvio Berlusconi was obliged to establish several committees of inquiry, all of which whitewashed the role of the state and security forces. This came as no surprise, since they were dominated either directly by the Interior Ministry or by the government majority in parliament. The official inquiries established only that some individual “errors and omissions” had been made and recommended the transfer of a few officials.

Now, state attorneys are substantiating the criticisms raised one year ago. Although their investigations are still far from over, it has already become clear that the security forces acted in a manner usually associated with military dictatorships. Meanwhile, the public prosecutor’s office has halted numerous proceedings against demonstrators and has instead opened eight new investigations against 148 police officers.

The September 2 edition of the German newsweekly Der Spiegel reported on the state attorneys’ findings, comparing the actions of the Italian police with the methods of “thugs of a third world dictator.” The magazine reported, for example, that the security forces utilised large numbers of provocateurs and known right-wing extremists who, camouflaged as anarchists, destroyed hundreds of shop windows and set fire to automobiles.

“Mixed in with the allegedly left-wing gangs of hooligans,”Der Spiegel writes, “were dozens of right-wing extremists. The police knew everything that was to happen beforehand. In an internal document, published later in the newspapers, the security authorities describe, in advance of the G-8 summit, how members of the neo-Nazi groups Forza Nuova and Fronte Nazionale mingled with gangs of anarchists and sought to start a riot in order to discredit the ‘left’.”

Right-wing extremists from other European countries were also invited to Genoa by their Italian comrades. Der Spiegel quotes a “Nazi from Birmingham” who says fascists were lured to Genoa with the promise that “We could do anything we wanted.”

At the time of the summit, the Italian media published many photos and film clips showing members of the black bloc, wearing balaclavas and scarves to hide their faces, chatting peacefully with police officers before throwing themselves into the fighting. Observers noted that the police left these rioters relatively undisturbed and did not arrest them even when they committed criminal offences right under their noses.

Interior Minister Claudio Scajola of Belusconi’s Forza Italia party justified the harsh police actions at the time with the argument that the security forces confronted an army of 5,000 rioters from the black bloc. But investigations conducted by the public prosecutor’s office have shown that the hard core consisted of barely 200 rioters—of which a large section were police provocateurs and right-wing extremists.

The security forces themselves fabricated the pretext with which they justified their repression. An example was to be made of the 300,000 demonstrators who had travelled to Genoa from around the world. That this was the calculated aim of the government can be seen from the incidents that took place at the Pascoli School the night after the demonstration.

Hundreds of demonstrators were asleep when police raided the school and unleashed an orgy of beatings. Ninety-three of those present were arrested and 62 were injured, some so seriously they had to be taken to intensive care. At a subsequent press conference, the police justified the action by claiming to have found weapons inside the school: Molotov cocktails, pick-axes and metal tubing.

The state attorneys have now established that the metal tubes and pick-axes were tools belonging to building workers renovating the school. They were stored in a locked room, which was only broken open by the police. As far as the Molotov cocktails were concerned, the police had brought them along themselves. A senior police officer acknowledged that he had found them in bushes the day before. A video exists showing leading members of the security forces being shown the petrol bombs before the raid on the school.

The existence of this video underscores that the police provocations in Genoa were not isolated cases. The police leadership would hardly have acted so carelessly and permitted filming if such practices were not widespread and sanctioned by their superiors.

High-ranking government officials were in close contact with the police throughout this period. Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini was at the police operations centre during the raid, although he is officially not responsible for the police.

Fini is leader of the National Alliance, which emerged from the fascist MSI. As the protégé of MSI founder Giorgio Almirante, he is no stranger to the use of provocation. In the 1960s and 1970s, the MSI was implicated in a right-wing terror network that sought to create the conditions for a coup. The network had connections with the highest levels of the security apparatus.

The events in Genoa expose Fini’s claims to have broken with his fascist past.

In view of the events in Genoa, the permanent campaign that Berlusconi is conducting against the judiciary and state attorneys can be seen in a new light. Up to now his attacks on the independence of the judicial system were generally considered an attempt to block investigations into himself and his company, Fininvest. Now a more fundamental dimension becomes clear: the aggressive attacks on the judiciary are meant to eliminate all legal checks on an increasingly authoritarian state apparatus.

I don't give a crap that this is from the WSWS, they actually quote an article from Spiegel, which you seem to fancy as far as journalism goes.

Sorry, Thanas, but no nation is above suspicion. Especially Britain which has a history of struggles with the labour movement and social protestors.

An internal document from the police of a G-8 nation in face of a G-8 summit flat out states that violent provocations will be used to "discredit the left", subsequent crackdown is justified by the provocation, and that's basically cleaning up Genoa for the G8 summit. Same goes for London and the Olympics.

I see no reason for you to be in awe. That is NOT an isolated case. In Moscow and Petersburg economic summits, etc. are preceded by major provocations with later crackdowns. The police everywhere in the world long learned this method. So it is not as if I'm speaking from ignorance. It is a very real possibility, and a disturbing one, too.

[Thanas]

Yeah, I know about the Italy act and that article really is just a bad summary of the six-page Spiegel article. Still, I don't believe Britain is Italy and I doubt the British police would shoot people just to provoke stuff.

[TC27]

Rumour is that the police are going to take the gloves off tonight.

Frankly I never thought I would see scenes like this in the UK - we obviously have a major problem to address with a whole section of inner city youths.

However before we start handwringing about it to much respect for the law and protection of property needs to be enforced and harshly if necessary - if the government is smart they must realise the public as a whole now expects this.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, I know about the Italy act and that article really is just a bad summary of the six-page Spiegel article.

I know. It was easy to find, though, and it was in English - same as Wikipedia, used for quickness.

Still, I don't believe Britain is Italy and I doubt the British police would shoot people just to provoke stuff.

Um... seriously, I was not saying that the police shot him for provocations. Provocations started later. You see 20 people protesting at first, over a death of a nobody. Then - riots, burned buses... Hundreds, possibly thousands of people involved. I think the police just gave a "green light" to provocateurs already operating undercover in protest organizations to start "herding the cattle", so to say.

No need to do the murder. Anything could have sparked this off. Just a rather convenient accident, and the police lets the dogs out.

[Winston Blake]

ETA: A member of the Iranian foreign ministry has advised our government to use restraint in dealing with protestors

I can smell the schadenfreude from here:

Iran urges UK to restrain police

Iran has called on the British police to exercise restraint against people protesting over the killing of a Black man in London.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast urged the British government to order the police to stop their violent confrontation with the people, IRNA reported in the early hours of Tuesday.

Mehmanparast asked the British government to start dialogue with the protesters and to listen to their demands in order to calm the situation down.

The Iranian official also asked independent human rights organizations to investigate the killing in order to protect the civil rights and civil liberties.

The unrest began on Saturday when a few hundred people gathered outside a police station in Tottenham to protest against the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan on Thursday.

The protesters also set a bus and buildings on fire on High Road and broke many shop windows.

Turmoil is now threatening to sweep across all of Britain as the unfolding mayhem and looting has also raged the central city of Birmingham, the western city of Bristol, the northwestern city of Liverpool, and south London neighborhood of Brixton.

Police said they have arrested more than 200 people since the unrest began.

[AniThyng]

I can imagine there are many 3rd world governments who feel the same way. After all, when we had our electorial reform protests in Kuala Lumpur dispersed with Water Cannon and Riot Police and having the entire Capital on lockdown, the government crowed about how there was no major injuries and property damage due to proactive police action. Nevermind that it's rubbish and the protest has a point, you can almost say the same thing about this one too...

[Zaune]

Yeah, I know about the Italy act and that article really is just a bad summary of the six-page Spiegel article. Still, I don't believe Britain is Italy and I doubt the British police would shoot people just to provoke stuff.

Most of them wouldn't, I agree. But most of them don't have to be in on it, do they? A few senior management and a single Authorised Firearms Officer could stage-manage the whole thing. Besides, they needn't have gone as far as to actually murder Duggan, blatantly and shamelessly railroading him for something he didn't do would have worked just fine.

But then again, why go to all that trouble to manufacture a confrontation when all they had to do was wait? If it hadn't been this shooting it would have been another one, or something like a leisure centre closing down, or even the Spurs getting their heads handed to them at a home game. The place was a complete time-bomb, along with most of the rest of the country.

[Teebs]

Well the first person has died. I'm glad I'm on holiday at the moment, my friends are having the areas where they live trashed and there seems to be a general perception that the rioters can act with impunity. More 'robust' policing has been promised for tonight, we shall see.

[Winston Blake]

To elaborate on Teeb's post:

Breaking News

A 26-year-old man shot in a car in Croydon last night has died in hospital, Scotland Yard says.

SDN members in London, keep an eye out:

1245: BBC Monitoring

Russian TV channel Rossiya 24 says parts of London resembled a "battlefield". Citing Twitter, the Rossiya 24 correspondent claims animals had been released from London Zoo and lions and tigers could now be heard roaring on the streets. This is wearily contradicted by the Zoo's press officer. "It's been very quiet," she tells us.

[Broomstick]

Yeah, I know about the Italy act and that article really is just a bad summary of the six-page Spiegel article. Still, I don't believe Britain is Italy and I doubt the British police would shoot people just to provoke stuff.

Well, not recently, at any rate....

The British Empire didn't come about because the British are nice, after all.

But, putting aside a police conspiracy for a moment, urban riots such as this often take place in an environment with real, serious issues. Some typical ones:

- discrimination (racial, class, religious - doesn't matter, and can be a mix)
- poverty (lack of money)
- high unemployment (lack of jobs)
- lack of good educational opportunities
- lack of adequate healthcare access
- lack of adequate housing
- police brutality (real and/or perceived)

Now, it's my understanding that in London not all of those prevail - so far as I know the London poor have healthcare access and tolerable housing conditions (though as always if Londoners know differently please correct me). But discrimination and chronic lack (note how often that work came up on the list) do exist and when they intensify, as recently, they can result in a state of tension where a single minor incident causes a city to erupt. Or in some cases, police inaction.

And it doesn't have to be a case of police injuring anybody, either - the 6 days of the Watts riots were triggered by a traffic stop for erratic driving, and the officers refusing to let the intoxicated occupants of the car drive themselves home. Also, much like the current riots, the targets in Watts were typically businesses although some homes were destroyed due to proximity to burning shops.

So, I'm very sorry, but London is experiencing a typical urban riot. It's not right, it's not fair, and it's certainly very scary. We haven't see anything on this scale in Britain for a long time.

Urban riots usually start with some perceived injustice or protest at police (in)action, then rapidly become a matter of vandalism, looting, and arson that has little or nothing to do with the triggering incident. Some social inhibition snapped and now people are running amok. The rioters outnumber the police, who suddenly have too much to look after, and the rioters realize that they can "get away with" all sorts of mayhem, at which point they start taking out their frustration at life on whatever is around them. They fill some of the lack in their lives by taking. They counter their usual feelings of powerlessness by destroying things.

Of course, something very different these days is the prevalence of things like CCTV cameras and idiots posting video of themselves looting stores on YouTube. In the old days you had to catch people red handed carrying shit out of building, now they're far more likely to have their picture taken, to be identified later.

Yes, without question, those individuals attacking other people, destroying buildings, and stealing should be punished. Simply dismissing this as the work of criminals, though, will not help prevent another eruption. If a city has a multi-day riot it's a sign there are some serious problems that are not being adequately addressed. Endlessly stating "there is no excuse for violence, violence is never acceptable" doesn't solve the problem. There is a need to find out why the city is such a powderkeg, and doing so won't excuse violence, but it might explain why conditions were ripe for a riot. When the why is known then, maybe, something can be done about it. If you don't bother to find out the why you won't be able to defuse the tension.

Of course, before the why can be found it is necessary to restore the peace. That may take some strong measures, and a level of force not usually employed. I do hope the British can bring this under control soon. In fact, I expect it will be done soon. Unfortunately, some of the pictures that come out of the tail end of this mess will likely be both disturbing and enraging.

Definitely, Londoners, keep yourself safe, and don't be one of the idiots that goes sight-seeing to the riot areas. (Unbelievable, but more proof people are idiots)

[Broomstick]

Saw this picture - there is something very British about using a riot shield as a tea tray:

[weemadando]

Oh mang, overheard some rich white folks at the theatre - "Just shoot them, it will fix the rioting and the unemployment numbers."

Can you feel the compassion?.

[Dartzap]

Another picthat I like

[HMS Sophia]

Oh mang, overheard some rich white folks at the theatre - "Just shoot them, it will fix the rioting and the unemployment numbers."

Can you feel the compassion?.

My wife is being like that, but then she is sick and pregnant and I'm letting it slide .

Will this still keep being as bad now that people are in hospital/dead? Or will the protesters just carry on regardless?

Also, plastic bullets are now a possibility, and are under consideration by the police.

[Broomstick]

Will this still keep being as bad now that people are in hospital/dead? Or will the protesters just carry on regardless?

The rioters are no less and no more compassionate than the "rich white people" saying "just shoot them". People in hospital or dead will not change anything, I am sad to say. I wish it were otherwise.

[HMS Sophia]

The rioters are no less and no more compassionate than the "rich white people" saying "just shoot them". People in hospital or dead will not change anything, I am sad to say. I wish it were otherwise.

I thought as much. I had hoped (and still do faintly) that some of them would hear that and think "Oh shit, maybe this is a bad plan"... but then I forgot they're humans, and Londoners for that matter... (No offence to Londoners, but there are some right dick-heads in areas)

Also, It's nice to see my birthplace in the middle of this...

[Companion Cube]

I have not been impressed with some of the coverage of the riots. Check this video out.

"I am not surpised by these riots (given their social and economic context)."

"So you're saying you CONDONE them??"

[FSTargetDrone]

The US has also been have problems with mob violence this week, though not quite on the scale London has, so gangs of 20-100 youths beating the shit out of random victims in Chicago and Milwaukee have sort of eclipsed most of the London news.

And Philadelphia. A 9:00 PM curfew has been ordered for minors in certain parts of the city.

[mr friendly guy]

ETA: A member of the Iranian foreign ministry has advised our government to use restraint in dealing with protestors

I can smell the schadenfreude from here:

The schadenfreude seems to be spreading.

China has now raised questions about security for the 2012 olympics.
linky

Relevant lines

After months during which China has bridled over western lectures about its fierce crackdown on dissent in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings, the country's official media reported on the shaming scenes in Britain with a mixture of shock and schadenfreude

Others wondered, archly, how such riots could ever have happened in Britain when, as the west never tires of reminding autocratic China, it has a much-vaunted free media, robust democracy and civil society supposedly guaranteeing its social stability.

The olympic minister had this to say

"I think they are wrong, for 14 to 15 months that I have been Olympics minister I have made security the key area. I am absolutely happy, and I am not a novice in this having been in the army for ten years, I am absolutely convinced that the intelligence led, risk based assessed approach is the best possible way to have a safe and secure Games,"Robertson said.

Robertson admitted the rioting was embarrassing, and would be so even if the 200 Olympic officials weren't in London for key meetings.

"I am saying to them that our incredibly detailed and complex security plan gives us no better guarantee, as much as you can guarantee these things, that we can deliver a safe and secure Games."

[mr friendly guy]

What newspapers of the world think

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/82840,new ... rld-thinks

The news that parts of Britain have descended into lawlessness has been reported in every corner of the world. But although the same pictures of burning buildings and lines of riot police appeared across the board, the accompanying words represented differing interpretations and concerns.

Germany. Die Welt splashes the headline: "This is the uprising of the working class", taken from a comment by self-professed British anarchist, 28-year-old Bryan Phillips.

France. The riots invoke "the ghost of the race riots of the 80s", according to Liberation. The left-wing paper says the causes are various, but include the "economic crisis, impoverished populations, and a disorganised police force".

Spain. Prime minister David Cameron "must evaluate if the social conditions in some areas of London, aggravated by the public spending cuts, constitute a risk as well as an insupportable injustice", says an editorial in El Pais.

United States. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post raise concerns over the proximity of the Olympics. The Times say that Britain must prove "there is no major risk of the Games being disrupted, or ruined, by a replay of the rioting", while the Post feels the riots are "an enormously damaging blow" with just a year to go. The Post says events are "taking root mostly in the powder keg of poorer neighbourhoods", and the Times pointed out that such violence raises "new questions about the political sustainability of the Cameron government's spending cuts, particularly the deep cutbacks in social programs".

Iran. The ISNA news agency reports that Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast has called for the Metropolitan police to exercise "restraint" in dealing with "protesters" and suggested the British government examine the "demands of the demonstrators".

India. The Times of India voices similar concerns over whether the city will be "safe enough to stage next year's Olympic Games", adding that "fresh violence in Hackney, close to the main Olympic stadium in East London, seemed ominous".

China. The People's Daily, otherwise known as the /Renmin Ribao/, points to the problems now facing the Metropolitan Police: "With insufficient manpower and financial resources they will inevitably be overwhelmed with problems in maintaining social order".

United Arab Emirates. Dubai-based English language website The National was one of the few news sources to bring up the recent events in the Middle East, quoting a man who compared the two. "In the Arab Spring, people were trying to get their freedom," a British man called Chris told them. "What are they trying to get here when they attack their own and steal trainers and TVs?"

Russia. The most popular article on the website of Pravda this morning was entitled: "London riots: Divine intervention?". It draws parallels with Britain's military intervention in Libya, asking, "does it not provide a perfect answer from God, underlining the sheer hypocrisy with which western governments view and conduct policy"?

Australia. The use of BlackBerry messenger (BBM) services, commented on throughout the world, is seized upon by the Sydney Morning Herald, which writes that BBM "appears to be the favoured method of planning the unrest that has swept across London".

[Chirios]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

Best quote:

'Yeah.. the government... yeah rich people... conservatives or whoever it is...'

The Reporter: Why have you been looting local businesses?
The Girl: Cuz it's the rich people, it's the rich people's fault that this happened.

[HMS Sophia]

Those girls quite obviously had no ideological or political motive behind this. They said it themselves, its fun and its free alcohol. People aren't doing this because they're angry at budget cuts (though it may have started that way) but because it's an excuse to run mad and burn down society. It's insanity, and shows a lack of morals that is painful to see.