Thursday, 22 February 2024 — MintPress News
The Metropolitan Police has taken to social media to confirm that despite the best efforts of Israel lobby groups, chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is not illegal.
Tag: Metropolitan Police
Rebellion over Gaza: the British left strikes back
5 February 2024 — Morning Star Online
Metropolitan Police officers form a cordon at Parliament Square to prevent protesters reaching Westminster Bridge during a Free Palestine Coalition demonstration in central London, January 6, 2024.
THE climbdown by the Metropolitan Police from cutting the route of today’s London march to stop the genocide in Gaza is a further indication of a rising political force beyond Westminster.
Open Letter to the Met
Thursday, 8 September 2022 — NetPol
Extinction Rebellion protests: we need clarity about what to expect from the Metropolitan Police
Sign the Open Letter
Actions planned in London in the coming months on the unprecedented global climate emergency, by Extinction Rebellion and other environmental campaigners, will represent the first real test of new police powers to impose aggressive protest restrictions that came into effect in June.
UK: Why can’t police acknowledge institutional racism?
Thursday, 26 May 2022 — Institute of Race Relations
How can an organisation become ‘actively anti-racist’ without acknowledging the existence of institutional racism? The National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing this week launched its Police Race Action Plan, tasked with ‘Improving policing for Black people’. Like so many plans and strategies before it, it is laden with commitments to ‘overhaul systems, processes and procedures’, promote good governance and implement a range of workstreams to tackle disproportionalities in the use of force, and to restore trust with the Black community.
COMMENT: Does it matter who replaces Cressida Dick as head of a racist police force?
Thursday, February 17, 2022 — NetPol
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick with London Mayor Sadiq Khan
Inevitably, speculation has begun on who will take over from the outgoing Metropolitan Police Commissioner, following the recent announcement of Cressida Dick’s early departure from the most senior policing position in the country.
Ongoing legal battle over 2005 UK police killing brings to light covert op to smear victim justice campaigns
10 November, 2020 — RT
On July 22, 2005, Jean Charles de Menezes was executed by armed police on a London Underground train. He was quickly found innocent, but his family’s fight for justice goes on, exposing police efforts to dodge responsibility.
Why Do the Police Exist?
20 June 2020 — Novara Media
by Connor Woodman
“The police do not prevent crime. This is one of the best kept secrets of modern life. Experts know it, the police know it, but the public does not know it.” – David Bayley, academic expert on the police, 1996
As we witness uniformed police officers pepper spray a seven-year-old in the United States or arrest a black ambulance driver in the UK, we have to ask: why does the police exist?
Racist Policing Accelerated During the Pandemic. Mounting Protests Could See It Get Even Worse
4 June 2020 — Novara Media
by Sophie Hemery @SophieHemery
Dwayne Francis was racially profiled and detained by police in London last month, while on his way to work in a secondary school.
“The rhetoric is always the same,” he said, describing how police routinely tell black people: “You fit the description of someone who has committed a crime, this is a high crime area, we can smell cannabis, you are a drug dealer because of the car you drive or the clothes you’re wearing.”
The UK is Not Innocent – Police Racism Has a Long and Violent History Here Too
1 June 2020 — Novara Media
John Sibley/Reuters
by Wail Qasim
@WailQ
“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” This desperate refrain has once again become the dying words of yet another black man in the United States.
Memories of the New York City Police Department officer administering a lethal headlock on Eric Garner have barely faded since his death in 2014. In the years that followed, as protest and movement-building swept across North America, the words would come to take on their own life in solidarity with Garner and the countless other black men and women who have died following contact with the police.
Spycops Update, May 2020
19 May 2020 — SpyCops
Here’s this month’s news from the campaign for truth and justice about Britain’s political secret police.
PUBLIC INQUIRY DELAYS
The Undercover Policing Inquiry is aiming to have the first hearings in September, having abandoned the June ones, which seems overly optimistic.
With coronavirus restrictions still in place, the Inquiry office has reopened for staff who feel safe to come in. However, the Chair, Sir John Mitting, won’t be among them, so will not have access to secure material. The police lawyers’ office is closed indefinitely, and without them ready it seems unlikely anything will happen any time soon.
Continue reading
UK: State of Emergency
16 October 2019 — True Publica
By TruePublica Editor: The Met Police is facing a growing backlash following its decision to ban Extinction Rebellion protests across London last Monday. In reality, this is about the government losing control.
Metropolitan Police impose London-wide ban on Extinction Rebellion protests as arrests top 1,500 By Chris Marsden
16 October 2019 — WSWS
Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists yesterday defied a London-wide ban on protests by the Metropolitan Police (Met). The basis cited for the ban Monday evening was a revised Section 14 order, of the Public Order Act, stipulating that by 9:00 p.m., “any assembly linked to the Extinction Rebellion ‘autumn uprising’…must now cease their protests within London.”
Stop the Police using authoritarian facial recognition cameras
Update: May 2019 — Big Brother Watch
Face Off
Right now, the Metropolitan Police is deciding whether to roll out live facial recognition PERMANENTLY on our streets.
Police claim the public supports facial recognition surveillance – we think they’re wrong.
Police still not investigating Leave campaigns, citing ‘political sensitivities’
11 October 2018 — Open Democracy
Exclusive: Months after Scotland Yard received ‘substantial’ evidence of potential criminality by pro-Leave groups, nothing has happened. Is the police probe destined for the political long-grass?
The Metropolitan Police has stalled the launch of any criminal investigation into three pro-Brexit campaigns – citing “political sensitivities”, openDemocracy can reveal today. Despite being handed their first dossier of evidence of potential crimes committed by pro-Leave groups over five months ago, the police force has made no progress nor logged a formal case into the activities of either Vote Leave, fronted by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, or Leave.EU, the pro-Brexit campaign bankrolled by Arron Banks.
Metropolitan Police try to block Freedom of Information requests over Grenfell Tower By Simon Whelan
11 November 2017 — WSWS
London Metropolitan Police have advised the Kensington and Chelsea Council (KCC) to prevent the release of correspondence that could provide damaging information on the failure to prevent a serious fire at Grenfell Tower.
Police officers are monitoring and vetting Freedom of Information requests regarding what the council knew of fire risks to Grenfell Tower, and when, after serious warnings made by the Fire Brigade Union (FBU).
UK police marksman will not be charged for killing Anthony Grainger By Trevor Johnson
1 February 2014 — WSWS
Within days of a London jury’s decision January 8 that the police killers of unarmed father of four Mark Duggan were acting within the law, the UK government’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) pushed through a similar decision in regard to the killing of Anthony Grainger.
No riots, no surprises By Nadia Beard
18 January 2014 — New Left Project
The subject of race and racism in the UK is nothing new to Britain’s criminal justice system and media, with reported cases of racist policing practices periodically gracing the media landscape. But few cases have had such stirring power as that of Mark Duggan’s shooting, the recent verdict of which has deepened an existing mistrust of police conduct, while for many adding another chapter of racial double standards to the annals of British race history.
Doreen Lawrence, police spies and institutional racism By Adam Elliott-Cooper
14 January 2014 — Open Security
Allegations of police spying on anti-racism groups shed new light on the meaning and operation of ‘institutional racism’. Here, Adam Elliott-Cooper reflects on the Stephen Lawrence Campaign and the MacPherson Report. Continue reading
UK police get away with killing of Mark Duggan By Julie Hyland
10 January 2014 — WSWS
The eight to two verdict by a coroner’s inquest that Mark Duggan was lawfully killed by London’s Metropolitan Police is a travesty of justice.
The jurors arrived at their findings despite unanimous agreement that the 29-year-old father of six was unarmed when he was shot twice in Tottenham, north London by an armed police officer on August 4, 2011.
The British Police: getting away with murder since 1969 By Koos Couvé
9 August 2013 — Open Democracy
The New Dark Age 