Today I attended a successful peaceful protest Starting in Leicester square in London, then we marched round to Trafalgar Square, where we blocked traffic for quite sometime. I was representing Disabled People Against Cuts, but other organisations were there too. Including The Black Triangle Campaign , and Boycott Workfare.
That's me in the green coat holding the DPAC banner with Terry outside McDonalds where the protest started. The top photo was taken by Sinister pictures, the rest of their photo's of the day are here and you can see Paul Davey's photo's of the day here. You can find a comprehensive list of all the articles/photo's/videos we can find compiled by Ania here, still being updated so check back.
The protest went very well, the Police were wise to the chain this time and quickly cut it with bolt cutters, but we still refused to move and significantly disrupted the traffic in Trafalgar square for hours. Drawing much needed attention to our causes.
The Police were generally very nice and did all they could to enable our protest, though one or two made insensitive comments and did push us a bit. But generally they responded very well to our passive resistance and didn't try to carry any of us away as far as I am aware. No one was arrested, we were very peaceful.
Update: Just seen this footage, seems the Police did push people around quite a bit in fact. This was just after we arrived at Trafalgar square and part of the group were already there and chained across the road, but the Police quickly cut the chain with bolt cutters and tried to make us move out of the road, once the rest of us got there.
I didn't see this scuffle, as by this point I had snuck round to the other side of the road (they tried to stop me and the other lady carrying the banner with me from crossing the road when we had been asked to to give support to the other protesters over there, they failed you can see our banner over there, we made it) but did hear the chant of "Shame on you" going up. Quite rightly too, shame on them! And society for letting this happen to us in the first place.
And on a personal note I was very pleased with my own attendance of the protest, I traveled all the way to London by train, and used the underground all on my own without any panic attacks, despite my anxiety based depression and social anxiety disorder. With a little help from some valium I hasten to add, but it was worth resorting to such a dangerously addictive drug I hate using, to be able to take part in such a successful and peaceful demonstration, I will take part in more in the future.
That's me in the green coat holding the DPAC banner with Terry outside McDonalds where the protest started. The top photo was taken by Sinister pictures, the rest of their photo's of the day are here and you can see Paul Davey's photo's of the day here. You can find a comprehensive list of all the articles/photo's/videos we can find compiled by Ania here, still being updated so check back.
The protest went very well, the Police were wise to the chain this time and quickly cut it with bolt cutters, but we still refused to move and significantly disrupted the traffic in Trafalgar square for hours. Drawing much needed attention to our causes.
The Police were generally very nice and did all they could to enable our protest, though one or two made insensitive comments and did push us a bit. But generally they responded very well to our passive resistance and didn't try to carry any of us away as far as I am aware. No one was arrested, we were very peaceful.
Update: Just seen this footage, seems the Police did push people around quite a bit in fact. This was just after we arrived at Trafalgar square and part of the group were already there and chained across the road, but the Police quickly cut the chain with bolt cutters and tried to make us move out of the road, once the rest of us got there.
I didn't see this scuffle, as by this point I had snuck round to the other side of the road (they tried to stop me and the other lady carrying the banner with me from crossing the road when we had been asked to to give support to the other protesters over there, they failed you can see our banner over there, we made it) but did hear the chant of "Shame on you" going up. Quite rightly too, shame on them! And society for letting this happen to us in the first place.
And on a personal note I was very pleased with my own attendance of the protest, I traveled all the way to London by train, and used the underground all on my own without any panic attacks, despite my anxiety based depression and social anxiety disorder. With a little help from some valium I hasten to add, but it was worth resorting to such a dangerously addictive drug I hate using, to be able to take part in such a successful and peaceful demonstration, I will take part in more in the future.
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