I didn’t write this, but thought it needed sharing as widely as possible. This is one of the worst instances of Pride officials and police collaborating in attacking radical groups at Pride I’ve ever heard of. Full solidarity with Queers Against Cuts.

“I formally registered the walking group Queers Against Cuts for the Brighton Pride Parade in July, paying the £60 fee out of my own pocket and from a donation from a ocal trade union. Members of the group were invited from local political groups trade unions and activist communities, to march in solidarity together against government cuts to public services and jobs. Pride began in Stonewall in 1969 as a protest against police harassment of gay and trans people in New York. As Government cuts to jobs and public services are affecting LGBTQ people disproportionately, for many reasons, this is an important reason for us to march against cuts in pride today. In my application email I explained that we would be a collective of different groups and individuals marching together, to check that this was acceptable with Pride organisers, and my application was accepted. On Thursday 30 August I was sent the parade running order (read that here:  2012 Parade Lamp Post Order) and we were pleased to discover we’d be between the National Union of Teachers, who also had an anti-cuts theme, and performance group Champagne Anarchists, at post 50.

Last Wednesday I received a call from Trevor Edwards pride organiser, who informed me the police had been in touch with concerns about our group being a protest. Trevor said he had reassured the police we were all formally registered and there was no reason to treat us differently.

Last Thursday I received a call from the Police Protest Liaison Officer PC Frank to introduce herself and to say good luck with our banner making (i.e. to let me know she was reading our Facebook Group) and to ask for my email to send me information (which hasn’t arrived yet). I explained I had formally registered the group for the parade with no need for different treatment from the other groups.

Today I turned up to register and collected my number 50 sign. Here I was told we’d been moved to the back, but as they didn’t know why and didn’t have the paperwork for number 58, they said we could stay in our original position and they would inform the mayor the order was as originally planned when we went past.

So we all got together behind NUT at point 50 who were pleased we were marching with them and we shared accessories!

Then a Pride Organiser came and told us we were in the wrong position and had to move to the back. I informed him that the registration people had said we could stay where we were, showed him my official ’50 sign so he went away.

Another Pride Organiser came and I explained again and he said we were fine where we were and could stay.

Another Pride Organiser came and said we had to move back, and when we asked why, became very aggessive and threatened if we didn’t move we would get thrown off the parade. I asked him to check with the previous organisers who had said we could stay.

Then a police officer came with the final Pride Organiser and said we had all been thrown off the march and had to be removed. At this point I broke down in tears as I had put so much hard work into organising the group. At this point I asked everybody to move to the back but was told we still couldn’t join the parade.

Then Caroline Lucas from the Green Party came and spoke to the police and Pride Organisers in solidarity with us. Finally we were allowed to march.

About 100 yards into the march on Marine Parade some latecomers to our group arrived, including a breast-feeding woman with her baby and others with children. I was told by the Pride Organiser that if I didn’t make them leave our whole group would be blocked. I explained I couldn’t force people to go anywhere. Suddenly a row of police on horseback and foot ran into the middle of our group, and I was told I had to personally identify who was officially in the group to be let through. As this was mainly organised online I didn’t know everybody’s faces. I managed to get most people out of the kettle but around 15 people were left behind. Again I was in tears and others were close to it, having been part of the group organising from the start and suddenly kettled for no reason.

Finally we continued to march. Throughout the parade any friends or latecomers who tried to join us were pulled from the parade by police. I managed to identify some friends to keep them in with us but others were blocked from joining us I’m very hurt and upset at how I was treated and spoken to by Pride, how the rest of the group were treated, how we were given no reason for our sudden relegation to the back, and our mistreatment by the police. Being surrounded by police on horses and on foot was unnecessary and too heavy handed. I was told other latecomers were allowed to join other groups such as The Conservatives.  I believe the only reason we were treated this way is because we had political banners which challenged the status quo of a corporate sponsorship of Pride, and it has really shown the lack of political solidarity from Pride Organisers.

This is my personal statement of my experience but I will be writing a formal statement from the Socialist Party of which I am a member, and asking groups and individuals to sign it once I get chance.

Well, this has inspired me to make the group bigger and even more organised next year! Who’s with me?”

The Graun has a pretty handy live blog on the Pussy Riot case. The band have been found guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” (such utter bullshit) no sentence announced at time of writing. Heavy police repression against protesters outside court.

Edit: They’ve been given two years each, ludicrous!

Pussy Riot seem to have inspired some pretty creative solidarity protests internationally, if nothing else the Russian state’s decision to make an example of Pussy Riot has backfired badly.

Solidarity with Pussy Riot and all victims of police brutality!

For the past week, thousands of anarchists from across Europe have been converging in St.Imier, Switzerland to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the founding of the Anarchist international. The gathering took the form of a festival and educational, with music, films and entertainment as well as workshops and discussions.

On returning from the St Imier gathering, two anarchists, one a member of the UK Anarchist Federation, were detained for nearly two hours at Heathrow by SO15 (counter-terrorist) police. During the detention, the anarchists were told that their normal rights did not apply, and had their names, addresses, email addresses, DNA and fingerprints taken. The detained anarchists were also forced to sign forms – which may or may not be legal – waiving their rights to silence and a solicitor. Police also conducted a thorough search of personal possessions, photocopied literature and passports and took information from phones and cameras.

During the detention, the police constantly accused the anarchists of lying about involvement in criminal activity and alleged that they would be conducting follow-up police action against one of the detained anarchists. In addition to this, SO15 officers asked a number of inflammatory, irrelevant and offensive questions, including ‘what would you do if someone raped your mother?’ evidently in an attempt to cause emotional upset and illicit angry or violent responses. One member (28) who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals from the police, said “We were treated like criminals. I told them I went to the congress as I am an amateur journalist and I write articles about activism. They saw my note book, camera and Dictaphone but they said I was lying. One officer said ‘You said you are an anarchist, I’ve seen anarchists on the news, they are violent, throw molotov cocktails and disrupt people’s lives not write articles’”.

The counter terrorist officers either didn’t know or chose to ignore that, during the first day of the gathering, the International of Anarchist Federations (Of which the UK Anarchist Federation is a member) had issued a statement rejecting all terrorist tactics as a means of achieving an anarchist society.

In contrast to the actions of the UK security forces, the local press and residents in St.Imier reported very positively on the anarchist gathering.

With this incident, we are seeing a further slide towards political policing and the criminalisation of political ideologies. The two detained anarchists have not had any involvement in any illegal or violent activity, or any activity that would concern the counter-terrorist police. As in the past, when Metropolitan police called on people to give information about local anarchists, anarchists suffered harassment for their political viewpoint.

As class-struggle anarchists, we believe that the state does little except serve the interests of the rich and powerful at the expense of ordinary people. This is seen clearly when people who hold views critical of the state are treated as criminals and terrorists. We seek to create a classless society, based on freedom, equality and co-operation. We believe in the capacity of ordinary people to run society themselves, without the interference of bosses or politicians. This incident was not in response to any crime and constitutes repression and criminalisation of a political ideology.

I’d probably enjoy the Olympics more if it were more about awesome things like cool sports and international cooperation and less about rubbish things like profiteering, censorship and horrible police brutality.