Whole Truth Coalition

Witness Statement

“Last Saturday (11th) Merseyside Police broke up a legal political mass stall by various organisations on Church Street in Liverpool city centre that had been planned for some time, arresting two political activists in the process. The mass stall was arranged by various groups after the wrongful arrest of a Liverpool political activist in August for distributing leaflets and selling political newspapers on Church Street, allowed under Government legislation and Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Last Saturday, various groups arranged to meet on Bold Street before heading to Church Street to set up stalls at one o’clock in the afternoon. Upon our arrival a police officer was already present harassing the Cuba Solidarity group. After seeing the various groups arrive the officer then called for backup and within fifteen minutes there were several officers on the scene removing stalls and literature from all groups present without any warning. This caused a major protest in the street and led to the heavy handed arrests of an Anarchist Federation member and an animal rights activist. The AF activist was arrested for simply refusing to stop handing out leaflets before refusing to give his details to the police. As well as this, the police were also heavy handed towards other activists and forcefully attempted to arrest two female activists later on.

The police action led to members of the public joining activists in successfully blocking the police car with the activists inside for nearly an hour, preventing the officers from leaving Church Street and heading to the police station. The police officers then called for even more re-enforcements who arrived and forcefully moved the protesters back, resulting in the police cars finally leaving Church Street with the two activists inside.

The disgraceful behaviour of the police managed to attract the attention of a good amount of passers by who joined in the protest and the police were completely humiliated and outnumbered.

The only obstruction in Church Street, Liverpool was Merseyside police vehicles and the crowd who gathered to see what was going on and stayed to support the protest. Activists and the public surrounded and blocked the exit of the police van, but the police were being hardline and couldn’t see that they caused the biggest obstruction in Liverpool for many years. The public were on the side of the political activists and chanted with us at various times “Let Them Go! - Let Them Go!” The police were offered the chance a number of times to unarrest the activists (as they could have done at any time) and we would disperse.

Merseyside police went in heavy handed and nobody could reason with them, the two arrested are due to be summonsed along with another 8 to 12 people despite doing nothing illegal.

For years political organisations have gathered on a weekend in various parts of the city centre and have been tolerated during that time. However, recently we have seen the harassment of activists on a weekly basis from the police during the Capital of Culture year in an attempt to “clean up the streets”. The actions of several police officers on the 11th October were yet another attempt to break up a legal gathering of activists.

This saturday various groups will gather again as usual in the city centre to demand the basic right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly and support from members of the public is needed on this day. I ask all of you reding this to attend and pass the details of this event on to other people in order to obtain a good presence on the day.’

Video Part One

Part Two

In Mario Puzo’s book, The Godfather, Vito Corleone is able to rise to power by intimidation and sometimes murder. As Puzo describes it, Corleone made sure that his competitors in distributing olive oil (yes, Vito did do olive oil, among a few other things) had a few problems, like having their delivery trucks robbed, oil dumped in the streets, and whatever else it took to convince his rivals that they should not compete with him.

The Godfather, of course, is a novel (later made into a movie). It is eminently readable, but a novel all the same. What happened this past week, however, was not from a novel, but rather from the mouth of the former U.S. vice president and the Nobel Peace Prize winner:

LONDON, England (CNN) – Former vice president and environmental campaigner Al Gore has urged young people to protest against new coal-fired power plants that don’t use carbon capture and storage technology.

Speaking at the opening plenary session of the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting in New York, Gore said: “If you’re a young person looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now, and not done, I believe we have reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.”

There is a problem, of course, and that is that there is no developed technology of “carbon capture” for power plants that can be applied on a large scale, and the early reports are that such a technology would add another 50 percent to the capital costs of the project, making the plant so expensive that it is not worth building in the first place. Thus, my first reaction to this article was to dismiss it as Al Gore being Al Gore: like the idiot uncle in the closet who escapes once in a while.

Read more…

Security minister Lord West last night claimed that ‘another great plot’ is being investigated by the police and security services. The warning of a potential new terrorist attack came as a dramatic intervention in a House of Lords debate over new terrorism powers.

Lord West, the Home Office’s counter-terrorism minister, declared: ‘There is another great (terrorist) plot building up again and we are monitoring this.’ The threat is ‘huge’, he added. The former head of the Royal Navy, and part of Gordon Brown’s so-called ‘Government of all the talents’, gave no further details.

Read more… 

Watch The Video here…

Police forces have been ordered to ask convicts to give them advice on fighting crime.

Criminals can join new groups which may be involved in the planning of major police investigations - including operations to tackle terrorism, people-smuggling and Class A drug dealing. They will have their expenses paid if they join the Independent Advisory Groups which are being set up to address ‘diversity issues’.

The idea is that the panels act as ‘critical friends’, offering guidance on how local police are seen by the people they serve.It is also claimed that by consulting over future operations - such as raids - the groups can tackle the ‘distrust of the police service endemic in certain minority communities’.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has told forces to advertise for volunteers - and added that criminals are welcome to apply.The guidance states that there should be a ‘presumption in favour of appointing the applicant’.

They can even continue as advisers if they are caught committing a crime while serving on one of the panels, the document adds.

Some members are allowed access to confidential police intelligence, and will have to sign the Official Secrets Act.

Read the full article here…