More information and new web address to follow soon.

Fitwatch – e-mail:  info@fitwatch.org

 http://webcache.googleusercontent.co…client=mozilla

The remarkable and brilliant student action at Millbank has produced some
predictable frothing at the mouth from the establishment and right wing
press. Cameron has called for the ‘full weight of the law’ to fall on
those who had caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage to the
expensive decor at Tory party HQ. Responsibility is being placed on ‘a
violent faction’, after the march was ‘infiltrated’ by anarchists.

There are an encouraging number of intiatives to show solidarity with the
arrested students – something that is vital if they are to avoid the sort
of punitive ‘deterrent’ sentences handed out to the Gaza demonstrators. A
legal support group has been established and the National Campaign against
Cuts and Fees has started a support campaign. Goldsmiths lecturers union
has publicly commended the students for a ‘magnificent demonstration’ .

This is all much needed, as the establishment is clearly on the march with
this one. The Torygraph has published an irresponsible and frenzied
‘shop-a-student’ piece and the Met are clearly under pressure to produce
‘results’ after what they have admitted was a policing ‘embarrassment’.

51 people have been arrested so far, and the police have claimed they took
the details of a further 250 people in the kettle using powers under the
Police Reform Act. There may be more arrests to come.

Students who are worried should consider taking the following actions:

If you have been arrested, or had your details taken – contact the legal
support campaign. As a group you can support each other, and mount a
coherent campaign.

If you fear you may be arrested as a result of identification by CCTV, FIT
or press photography;

DONT panic. Press photos are not necessarily conclusive evidence, and just
because the police have a photo of you doesn’t mean they know who you are.

DONT hand yourself in. The police often use the psychological pressure of
knowing they have your picture to persuade you to ‘come forward’. Unless
you have a very pressing reason to do otherwise, let them come and find
you, if they know who you are.

DO get rid of your clothes. There is no chance of suggesting the bloke in
the video is not you if the clothes he is wearing have been found in your
wardrobe. Get rid of ALL clothes you were wearing at the demo, including
YOUR SHOES, your bag, and any distinctive jewellery you were wearing at
the time. Yes, this is difficult, especially if it is your only warm coat
or decent pair of boots. But it will be harder still if finding these
clothes in your flat gets you convicted of violent disorder.

DONT assume that because you can identify yourself in a video, a judge
will be able to as well. ‘That isn’t me’ has got many a person off before
now.

DO keep away from other demos for a while. The police will be on the
look-out at other demos, especially student ones, for people they have put
on their ‘wanted’ list. Keep a low profile.

DO think about changing your appearance. Perhaps now is a good time for a
make-over. Get a haircut and colour, grow a beard, wear glasses. It isn’t
a guarantee, but may help throw them off the scent.

DO keep your house clean. Get rid of spray cans, demo related stuff, and
dodgy texts / photos on your phone. Don’t make life easy for them by
having drugs, weapons or anything illegal in the house.

DO get the name and number of a good lawyer you can call if things go
badly. The support group has the names of recommended lawyers on their
site. Take a bit of time to read up on your rights in custody, especially
the benefits of not commenting in interview.

DO be careful who you speak about this to. Admit your involvement in
criminal damage / disorder ONLY to people you really trust.

DO try and control the nerves and panic. Waiting for a knock on the door
is stressful in the extreme, but you need to find a way to get on with
business as normal.

Otherwise you’ll be serving the sentence before you are even arrested.

“Fitwatch are a loose organisation who for several years have narked off the filth by exposing, blocking and challenging the Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT), the branch of the police used to spy on and harass protesters. If you’ve ever been on a demo or even at a community festival or football match then you may have noticed them pointing a camera at you because they’re too scared and lazy to be proper coppers.

After last weeks events at Millbank during the student demonstrations fitwatch.org.uk published some advice for those worried they had appeared in the press and may face arrest. The piece called Beating police repression after the student occupation can now be read, thanks to the bungling Met on a growing number of sites across the internet.

The fitwatch site was shut down apparabtly on request of Acting Detective Inspector Will Hodgeson from CO11. Early reports suggest that this happened due to a request from the police to the site’s host complaining the site may be involved in perverting the cause of justice. This is a worrying development. Whilst we will doubtless know more tomorrow, as yet it does not seem a Court Order had been issued which, means the filth are now bullying internet hosting companies into removing material which upsets them.

The good news is that the offending piece, now being much discussed on twitter (2) can be found at:

 http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/beating-police-repression-after-the-student-occupation/

 http://dirt.thevacuumcleaner.co.uk/2010/11/beating-police-repression-after-student.html

and here:  http://norfolknonaligned.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/beating-police-repression-after-the-student-occupation/

and also at

 http://bryanspygar.blogspot.com/2010/11/beating-police-repression-after-student.html

 http://projectsheffield.wordpress.com/2010/11/15/httpfitwatch-org-uk-has-been-suspended/

as well as UK indymedia, Bristol indymedia and Scotland indymedia as well as being linked to on facebook pages, republished in forums etc.

And of course google (3).

All in just two hours, please join in, republish and show the Met the internet will not be censored. Add links to anywhere else you’ve spotted it in the comments below.

Fitwatch have said they ain’t going fucking anywhere and will be back online soon, in the meantime you can catch them on facebook at:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fitwatch/103821345868

(1)  http://www.fitwatch.org.uk/
(2)  http://twitter.com/search?q=%23fitwatch
(3)  http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qv4goBQOpDYJ:www.fitwatch.org.uk/+fitwatch&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

Last post on Fitwatch before closed -

“Police seek to capitalise on student “riots” to justify further repression and their own budgets.

Although the actions of the students last week were inspiring and
empowering, it should come as no surprise the media savvy police are
using it as an ideal opportunity to both fight back against cuts to
their budgets and to counter the recent bad press regarding protest
policing.

The NCDE domestic extremist units claim to have suffered in the cuts. Former head of NCDE, Anton Setchell has retired, and head of NETCU, Steve Pearl has been given the boot, and both have been replaced by a cheaper, junior model – Detective Chief Supt Adrian Tudway. Steve seems particularly upset about getting sacked and has been whining to the Telegraph about how, if he was still running the units, their intelligence on the riots would have been better.

As usual, he is talking nonsense. The police didn’t predict the disorder because it wasn’t planned; the march wasn’t hijacked. I read the same websites as the cops, I know lots of activists, the intelligence we all had before the demo would have been similar. Yes, there were rumours of civil disobedience, and autonomous blocs, but
this is true of every major demonstration. It would certainly have been true on the entirely peaceful February 15 Iraq demo, and there was no particular reason to believe this would be any different.

This is a desperate attempt by an unpopular unit to appear relevant and we must not be fooled. NCDE are bleating about cuts when only a few weeks ago they were squandering money sending Ian Caswell to Plymouth to monitor and photograph Trident Ploughshares pacifists.

The students who occupied Millbank are not domestic extremists, they are angry, brave and passionate people who care about what this government is doing to the country. They have grown up witnessing the futility of being herded from A to B and listening to the platitudes of irrelevant politicians.

Ordinary people are angry with even a Daily Star poll showing the majority in favour of the students rioting. The fight back is on, and no amount of intelligence on the usual suspects from a redundant unit is going to make a difference.”

A decade of Trident Ploughshares blockades and disarmament actions have helped build a strong and broad movement against nuclear weapons in Scotland. The Scottish government was elected with a policy of nuclear disarmament. Now it is England’s turn.

On the 1st of November we are calling on people to join us to continue to increase the pressure by non-violently blockading the Devonport submarine base.

http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1608

There’s rats in the trenches
A thousand foul stenches
Of piss, pus and puke, blood and death
Jim’s screaming his head off
‘Cause Frank hasn’t got one
And Joey’s just drawn his last breath
While back home in Surrey
They try not to worry
And keep all their doubts locked inside
For in a few years
There’ll be no more tears
And they’ll all wear their poppies with pride…

She can’t understand
As she holds the girl’s hand
That her daughter’s no longer attached
They were all blown to hell
As a terrorist cell
Though a wedding was all that they’d hatched
And back in the West
They’re so sure they know best
Though they’ve tortured and murdered and lied
And they don’t want to know
What the body counts show
As they all wear their poppies with pride…
Oh, they all wear their poppies with pride…

At the annual board meeting
Arms dealers are greeting
Reports of their profits with glee
They’ll always be willing
To make a quick killing
From slaughter and mass misery
And when it’s all over
They’ll head off to stuff
The big bellies their suits cannot hide
And they won’t spare a thought
For the carnage they’ve brought
But they’ll all wear their poppies with pride…
Yes they’ll all wear their poppies with pride…

Whoever you mix with
There’s bound to be someone
Whose mind is still caught in the mesh
Those soldiers aren’t heroes
They’re nothing but fodder
For the thing that grows fat on our flesh
And you show no respect
For the ones left behind
Or the miserable sods who have died
If you can’t face the truth about why they were killed
And you still wear your poppies with pride…
If you still wear your poppies with pride….
Do you still wear your poppies with pride?

Paul Cudenec
November 2009
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/11/441409.html?c=on#c236896

About 2-300 people gathered in the City Centre at noon and marched through the town. 

After listening to speeches outside the Guildhall, many of those gathered then headed towards Devonport Dockyard to march around the gates, and listen to yet more speeches and calls to action at the Camel’s Head gate.

Those of us based in Plymouth would like to add our great thanks to those who travelled to come to this demonstration.  Special mention must go to Tower Hamlets CND, Southampton CND, Yorkshire CND, Rochdale Peace Group, London CND, the ‘nuclear leeks’ of Kingsbridge Peace Group, Penzance CND, Tavistock Peace Action Group, and the varied groups of trade unionists, particularly from Unison.  Thanks all.

Peace out.

PS – more pics are available on the Plymouth CND Facebook page.

The largest military operation since the Obama administration took office is now underway in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. Some 4,000 marines, along with hundreds of British troops, are attempting to impose control over an ethnic Pashtun population that has opposed the US-led occupation ever since the 2001 invasion overthrew the Taliban government and installed the Karzai regime.

At the same time, the Pakistani government, primarily because of financial and political coercion by Washington, has ordered its military into a brutal offensive against the Pashtun people of northwest Pakistan. Their crime is that they share a common history, language and culture with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and provide support to the Taliban insurgency over the ill-defined border between the two countries.

The human cost has already been staggering. In a savage act of collective punishment, the Pakistani military has forced at least 2.5 million people from their homes in tribal agencies such as Bajaur and Mohmand and from the Swat Valley district of North West Frontier Province. The US is complementing the assault with almost daily airstrikes on the homes of alleged Pakistani insurgent leaders, particularly in the agencies of South and North Waziristan. This week alone, American missiles have killed at least 80 men, women and children.

After nearly eight years of fighting in Central Asia, Obama has escalated the conflict to a new and bloodier level—the “AfPak War” being waged on both sides of the border. It has no end in sight. David Kilcullen, the former advisor to General David Petraeus, who helped plan both the Iraq and Afghanistan troop surges, told the British Independent this week what is being openly discussed in the White House and on Downing Street:

“We are looking at 10 years at least in Afghanistan, and that is the best case scenario and at least half of that will be pretty major combat. This is the commitment that is needed, and this is what the people in America and Britain should be told, and they should be told that there will be a cost involved.”

The truth is that the governments of the US, Britain and the other countries taking part in the war are telling their people as little as possible. They are being assisted by a corrupt media establishment that allows itself to be censored and provides only the most sanitised reports.

British journalists who have been “embedded” with NATO forces in Afghanistan told the Guardian last month that the coverage of the war was “lamentable”, “outrageous” and “indefensible”. Thomas Harding of the Telegraph admitted: “We have constantly been told that everything is fluffy and good and we, and the public, have been lied to.” (See: “A lack of cover” http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/15/afghanistan-embedded-journalists-mod )

Typical of the official lies was the statement of US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, quoted in the USA Today, that American troops were in Helmand to “create a new atmosphere where the people reject the Taliban and their culture of fear and intimidation”.

In point of fact, as the New York Times acknowledged last week, the Taliban is gaining support due to hatred for the US and NATO occupiers and their puppet government in Kabul. On July 3, correspondent Carlotta Gall noted that “the mood of the Afghan people has tipped into a popular revolt in some parts of southern Afghanistan” and that people had “taken up arms against the foreign troops to protect their homes or in anger at losing relatives in airstrikes”.

To suppress the resistance, the Marine Corps is imposing a regime of “fear and intimidation” on the 250,000 inhabitants of the Helmand River Valley. The tactics being directed by General McChrystal are modelled on the counter-insurgency methods he applied in the rebellious areas of Iraq. The main towns have already been placed under military rule. The movement of the population to markets, shops and hospitals will be controlled and monitored by curfews, checkpoints and constant searches and street interrogations. Local leaders will be pressured into identifying insurgents, who will then be targeted for assassination or capture by special forces’ death squads—whom the media dutifully call “combat reconnaissance patrols”.

It is remarkable that even as the Obama administration has escalated the war, it has virtually dropped the original pretext that was used to justify it.

What ever happened to Osama bin Laden? He is rarely if ever mentioned and Al Qaeda is increasingly relegated into the background in the official propaganda and media accounts.

This is no small matter. The ostensible legal basis on which American troops are in Afghanistan is the “Authorization for Use of Military Force”, the joint resolution passed by the US Congress on September 18, 2001—one week after 9/11. The resolution authorised military force for the purpose of capturing or destroying the Al Qaeda leadership, beginning with bin Laden, so as to prevent further terrorist attacks.

Nearly eight years later, there is barely the pretence that American troops are in Afghanistan to hunt down Al Qaeda. Instead, the war is declared to be against the “Taliban”—a label indiscriminately applied to any Afghan who resists the US-led occupation. At no time, however, was there an accusation that the Taliban had a role in 9/11. The Bush administration’s justification for targeting the Islamist government in Kabul was that it rejected an ultimatum to turn over the Al Qaeda leadership to the United States.

The dropping of the original pretext for the invasion poses the question: with what purported legal justification has the US government and its allies continued and escalated the war? The truth is they have none. Nothing remains but the reality of an imperialist war of plunder and domination.

The US-led occupation of Afghanistan and the terrible violence engulfing Pakistan is the culmination of 30 years of American imperialist intrigue in Central Asia to establish strategic and economic dominance over the resource-rich region.

From 1979, US governments funded and supplied an Islamist insurgency to overthrow an Afghan government backed by the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, the Clinton White House encouraged its Pakistani ally to help install the Taliban in Kabul in the belief it would be favourable to the aspirations of US companies to win control of major oil and gas projects in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states, and build pipelines through Afghanistan. When civil war and instability prevented the realisation of those plans, the presence of Al Qaeda was exploited, at least by 2000, to begin preparations for a direct US conquest of the country.

The September 11 attacks provided the pretext to set the plan into operation. As well as potential access to the resources in neighbouring countries, the occupation of Afghanistan provides the US and its NATO allies with a strategic forward base to project force against rival claimants for regional influence such as Russia, China, India and Iran.

The AfPak War is not a war against terrorism, or for democracy, or to help the long-suffering Afghan people. It is an indefinite, colonial war whose central aim is to turn Afghanistan into a US client state and ensure that Pakistan remains firmly under Washington’s geo-political influence.

Homepage: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j10.shtml

“On the train from Durham to London, I had several hours to contemplate the perceived ineffectualness of protests, such as the latest I was about to attend; that many people will, as always, ask ‘how are you going to change anything?’; that it will be seen as no more than a charitable gesture.  When faced with such questions and perceptions, many of which meander in and out of the realms of apathy, I remember the words of the Jewish Nobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel: “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest”.   Moreover, I remind myself of the reasons why thousands have decided to march in the same direction, in defiance of the same injustices and in support of a people, many of whom would doubtless extend to us the same courtesy, as human beings, should we be in their shoes and they be in ours.

What should be noted is that not only do we protest about the atrocities of the last fortnight, but the horrors inflicted upon the people of Palestine for over 60 years. In the spirit of ‘not forgetting’, it must be made clear that such atrocities are intertwined, as for generations; both oppressor and victim have remained the same, as has the indifference and support to the former, by our own governments.  While Israel plays the same old ‘victim card’, all too easily forgotten are the 250 Palestinians exterminated at Deir Yassin in 1948, the hundreds murdered at Lydda, Ramla and Eilabun in the same year, to mention but a few of many instances of ethnic cleansing.   All too easily forgotten is the subsequent sacking of over 400 Palestinian villages and the depopulation of their inhabitants.   All too easily forgotten, is the sobering fact that since the start of the last century, the state of Palestine has been gradually eaten away in the name of the ‘repopulating the rightful home of the Jewish people’.   Inevitably this has meant the systematic depopulation of the Palestinian people, who had called Palestine ‘home’ for hundreds of years. In 1917, 97.5% of the region constituted Palestinian land.   As of 2006, Palestinians could barely call 13% of the same region ‘home’.

There are some who would prefer to consign the earlier atrocities to the history books in the name of ‘fresh starts’ and disassociation.  More recent Israeli atrocities however, are far less easily consignable to the archives of shame: The 15,000 Lebanese civilians massacred in the Israeli invasion of 1982 and the 1,000 killed in the more recent 2006 conflict, roughly a third of whom were under the age of 13, according to UNICEF.  Dare the apologists and appeasers forget the Sabra & Shatila massacre in the same year of the first invasion of Lebanon, which left almost 4000 dead in its wake?  Dare they forget the massacre of 110 refugees at Qana over a decade later?  Dare they forget the hundreds butchered at Jenin in 2002?  How dare they?  The answer is anyone’s guess.  On the 2nd January 2009, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni rejected a call for a ceasefire to allow passage of aid into Gaza and in doing so, declared: “there is no humanitarian crisis”.  10 days on, and an estimated 900 Palestinians, most of them civilians and a large percentage of them women and children have been butchered, thousands injured and the rest of the population of the concentration camp which is Gaza, denied aid and urgent supplies.  This, in the name of retaliation against a ceasefire that Israel and the Hawks in Washington and Downing Street all too eagerly claim that Palestine broke by firing rockets into its territories in late December 2008, when in-fact the ceasefire was broken by Israel on the 4th and 17th of November 2008 respectively, leaving 10 Palestinians dead, ironically the same number that Hamas have killed in the ensuing invasion by Israel compared to the aforementioned 900 killed by the IDF. How dare they?

And so we protest. At Hyde Park alone, I stood among an estimated 100,000 people in the bitter cold, some of whom clambered over the bare branches of trees to catch a glimpse of guest speakers, who included Annie Lennox, Brian Eno and the Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen.   As these thousands and more marched in the direction of the Israeli embassy at Kensington, cries of “Palestine, don’t you cry – we will never let you die” and “Free, free Palestine” drowned out sporadic bursts of religious zeal among Muslim attendees, proving that these and other act of solidarity are not part of some ‘greater battle between Islam and Judaism’, but simply an acknowledgement of atrocities rained down on the Palestinian people by an Israeli regime that does not support the best interests or wishes of her own people, let alone those who suffer in Gaza.

As night fell, following inspirational speeches by the likes of Tariq Ali and George Galloway, which marked the end of the rally at Kensington, I came to realise that such a heartfelt and passionate protest was not simply intended to call for a stop to the Israeli offensive.  Even when the bombs stop dropping, when the blood stops pouring from the heart of a nation as freely as it has for the past fortnight – every single innocent life, taken in the name of everything that is the antithesis of ‘justice’ and ‘freedom, has to be accounted for.  The indifferent and complicit, as well as the directly accountable, must answer for this genocide; and if they don’t – our collective voices should continue to rise.  The world must never forget what has happened in Gaza and easily it might.  As I stood in Kings Cross station, Sky News provided its own report on the day’s proceedings.  They, as a large portion of our so-called ‘free press’ has done, chose to focus on the isolated incidents of violence; the shoes thrown in the spirit of Muntadar al-Zaidi; the sporadic cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’, instead of that which constituted the main protest.

On the train back from London to Durham, my feelings on the outwards journey were not only vindicated, but strengthened.  That over one hundred thousand men, women and children marched in the same direction, irrespective of creed, colour, age or nationality; that the very notions of ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’, transcended such divisions, cemented for me the reality that freedom is not necessarily freedom from iron shackles, but freedom of the mind.  Such freedom gives these marching thousands moral license to paraphrase these immortal words: ‘All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Palestine, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words –  ‘Ich Bin Ein Palestinian’.”