MetaFilter posts tagged with police and protest

James Powderly's story of his Beijing detention

kliuless — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:11:13 -0800

An American in Beijing's Detention Facilities (via kottke)

After hours without sleep and threats against their lives and the lives of their loved ones, Powderly and the other Americans began to crack. “That’s when I started to realize that I’m really good at being a douche-baggy art star, but I’m really bad at this secret agent business,” he said.

which can be compared/contrasted with recent police action in st. paul (and of course guantanamo), but also the larger image and reality in china.

Not in China

dminor — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:43:56 -0800

NYPD in action. There is really not much anywhere written about this, but here is the youtube link of some policemen threatening and beating people in front of the UN building in New York. Some pics (stills from the video) here.

Armenia declares state of emergency

k8t — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:35:48 -0800

On February 19, Armenia hosted a presidential election. The winner with 52% of the vote was (as expected), current Prime Minister and BFF to the current president, Serge Sargsyan. The runner-up with 21.5% of the vote was former president (taken out by the current president in 1997), Levon Ter-Petrossian. The elections were flawed, lots of people protested over the past week, the protests have gotten violent, LTP is under house arrest and the government has issued a 20 day state of emergency. At least 3 (including a police officer) have been killed. BBC story, NYTimes story, ArmeniaNow (Western trained journalist, British and American editor, local reporters, UnZipped, a local English language blog, OneWorld Armenia, a British photojournalist's blog, Armenian Observer blog does an excellent job summarizing the Armenian and Russian language blogospheres as well as reporting his own material in English with text, videos and photos, although it is worth noting that he is not a fan of either candidate. There are many LiveJournal bloggers blogging as well, but Armenian Observer will likely summarize them. Armenian Observer has an excellent summary of the past week here. Here are some highlights: "The opposition protest, peaceful as it was, was held with violations of the RA Law on Gatherings and Peaceful protests. Usually, during the day, there would be from 20-40,000 opposition supporters gathering for the rally. The number tripled at least on one occasion, on February 26th, when people forcibly brought to the Republic square in Yerevan to support the pro-government candidate Serzh Sargsyan went over to join the rally in support of Serzh Sargsyan’s opponent - Ter-Petrossian." "Despite numerous warnings from police, the President - the protesters stayed in the Liberty square day and night, sleeping in tents put up in the square and burning bonfires to get warm. During the 9 days of the protests, authorities launched a massive propaganda campaign against the Ter-Petrossian supporters, portraying protesters as armed rioters, drug addicts, alcoholics and homeless. Meanwhile a number of arrests of vocal opposition figures as well as Yerkrapah members (a union of former Karabakh war freedom fighters) were carried out. A case was reported, when State Security servicemen had joined the rally disguised, and tried to provoke the peaceful protesters for more aggressive actions, but had been prevented from doing so by organizers of the opposition rally." "Today, after police strike, violence was reported, the opposition supporters tried to resist with stones and sticks. From what I know around 31 people have suffered so far, 6 of whom have been police officers. At the moment the Liberty square is chained by police forces." "Police are claiming, that they had evidence about preparations by the opposition forces to distribute weapons and start violent actions. However, this morning during, and after the police attack on protesters, journalists were prevented from taking photos and videos, the camera of a Yerkir-Media TV operators was broken. Later, the police footage shows various types of weapons found in the Liberty square after police had cleared the place of the protesters, however, considering all the propaganda and dirty methods of police action we have seen so far, it is hard to believe, that this is not fabricated evidence." "From various media reports we learn, that the police violently beat up those in the Liberty square and chased them down several streets. By 12 o’clock when I was near the French embassy, there were riot police forces blocking the area, with crowds of angry people squeezed between the police forces in front of the French embassy on Grigor Lusavorich street."

Critical Mass Arrests

taursir — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 01:34:51 -0800

Police overreact, and attack bikers with no provocation at Minneapolis Critical Mass. Responses from witnesses tell one picture of what happened, but local news says "nobody was hurt" despite squad cars knocking bicyclists from their bikes. What gives?

We're gonna spray and push, got it?

loquacious — Sun, 21 May 2006 19:19:12 -0800

A rather well-edited and well-editorialized video of anti-protester police tactics as seen from perspective of police-operated cameras from the infamous protest in Portland of 2002. (Coral Cache here.)

Babies against war

dg — Wed, 26 Mar 2003 17:30:41 -0800

In anti-war protests in Australia yesterday, children as young as 12 were shown on TV coverage participating not only in protests, but in the violence that followed when the protesters attacked police. There has, in the past, been condemnation of those who bring their children along to protests, but this is the first time I have seen large numbers of children protesting on their own behalf - most of whom would have been truant from school and, judging by the way many hid from cameras, without the permission of their parents. Should we take them seriously, or are they too young to really understand what it is they are protesting against? [more inside]

Ty Webb — Wed, 02 Oct 2002 10:48:04 -0800

TRAPPED, CUFFED & BUSSED Two Diamondback (Univ. of Maryland student newspaper)reporters covering the IMF-World Bank protests were arrested Friday morning and manacled for 23 hours. Surrounded by hundreds of protesters in Pershing Park, Washington Metropolitan Police circled and arrested the entire group. Jason Flanagan and Debra Kahn were there as impartial observers, and despite the newspaper's efforts to release them, they were stripped of all their possessions - even their shoelaces. What follows is a first-person account of their arrest and detention.

monkeyJuice — Sun, 17 Jun 2001 06:00:52 -0800

I generally don't have anytime for large scale protest's (wto riots - and mayday riots) and i dont agree with them when they start a vicious offence. Police are only defending themselves with water cannons and tear gas - *BUT THIS* is completly out of hand....

krakedhalo — Tue, 10 Apr 2001 19:47:18 -0800

Riots in Cincinnati. Cincinnati city police have this odd habit of killing unarmed young black males. In November, two men were killed. One was shot, another was crushed or suffocated while already in police custody and, according to witnesses, not resisting. Several weeks later a policeman shot and killed a twelve year old out joy-riding. Saturday night an officer chased down and shot a nineteen year old he 'thought he recognized' as someone with outstanding traffic warrants. Every time someone is killed Cincinnati city council promises to look into the matter but does nothing. Today someone decided to take action, even if it was in a destructive and politically impotent form of action.