24 August 2011 — URUK Net
‘Stuff happens and it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.’ — Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq looting (April 11, 2003.)
Tag: uk riots
UK: NO TO ‘GENERAL CURFEW’ POWERS
25 August 2011 — Manifesto Club
In the wake of the riots, home secretary Theresa May proposed broad new police powers ‘to impose a general curfew in a particular area’. Other politicians proposed powers to block social network sites, or to ban face coverings.
As we outlined in a Manifesto Club statement – there is absolutely no need for more police powers. The basic power of arrest for criminal damage and theft was all that was needed: yet this power was woefully applied.
Worse, open-ended powers (as with on-the-spot fines or dispersal orders) tend to be used in a petty way against perfectly innocent people. See our article, ‘Policing the Innocent, Ignoring the Riotous‘.
UK Riots: The violence of the violated By A. Sivanandan
16 August 2011 — IRR
The director of the Institute of Race Relations comments on the recent riots.
Everyone is clutching at explanations for the riots – gangs, greed, family breakdown, lack of respect. But I would like to go into their deeper causes.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS 545 19 August 2011: CORPORATIONS, CRIME, REVOLTS AND PROTESTS
19 August 2011 — Pambazuka News
The authoritative electronic weekly newsletter and platform for social justice in Africa
Pambazuka News (English edition): ISSN 1753-6839
CONTENTS: 1. Features, 2. Announcements, 3. Comment & analysis, 4. Advocacy & campaigns, 5. Books & arts, 6. Highlights French edition, 7. Cartoons
Damn it or fear it, the forbidden truth is an insurrection in Britain By John Pilger
18 August 2011 — John Pilger
On a warm spring day, strolling in south London, I heard demanding voices behind me. A police van disgorged a posse of six or more, who waved me aside. They surrounded a young black man who, like me, was ambling along. They appropriated him; they rifled his pockets, looked in his shoes, inspected his teeth. Their thuggery affirmed, they let him go with the barked warning there would be a next time.
British Jealous of America’s Savage Police By Glen Ford
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Given the extreme violence of American life, when compared to other rich nations, why would the Brits consider for even an instant emulating the U.S. criminal justice system? What could American cops teach them?
Black Agenda Report 17 August 2011: Save Yourselves, Not Obama / Black Libya City Falls / Prez Bachmann
17 August 2011 — Black Agenda Report – News, commentary and analysis from the black left
It’s Too Late To Save The Obama Administration. Can We Still Save Ourselves?
By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Two and half years into the Obama presidency, some of us spend more time mooning over pretty pictures of the First Family, their beautiful kids and regal mother-in-law than we spend publicly worrying over the fates of millions of families, children and elders we personally know. Why are some of us still trying to “save” the Obama administration. When will it be time to save ourselves from endless war, climate change, joblessness and the other ravages of late predatory capitalism?
Broken Britain: Broken record By Ann Czernik
16 August 2011 — Morning Star
If riots are the voices of the unheard, they’ve come over loud and clear. But nothing we’ve heard from government [that] will bring an end to the causes of unrest.
Video: The Real Source of the British Riots
16 August, 2011 — Freedom Radio
Here are some more important facts on the riots in England, as we try to peel back the layers and look at the root causes, rather than merely regard the scintillating burning leaves at the end of the branches… Continue reading
NATO, ICC Criminalise Stone Throwing, Legitimise Street Shooting By Bernard Anbataayela Mornah
15 August 2011 — Joy Online (Ghana)
‘This is pure criminality and must be confronted and defeated’. Just in case you were wondering where I was going with this statement, these are the words of Prime Minister David Cameron, which also represents the official position of No.10 Downing Street on the current unrest in what we use to know as the Great Britain. You know what; I will come back to that.
UK: Turkish and Kurdish Labourers and Traders Must Refuse to Be Pitted Against the Black People
14 August 2011 — MRZine
To the attention of the Press and the Public:
As it is known, last Saturday a protest took place outside Tottenham police station in order to attain answers or explanations as to how and why Mark Duggan, a father of four, was killed by the police on Thursday 4th August. The events were unleashed as a result of the police physically attacking a 16 year old girl who on behalf of the protestors, all of whom had demanded justice, entered the police station, after waiting for around 4-5 hours outside of the station, to acquire an explanation regarding the killing.
Driving People into Rebellion By Stephen Harper
13 August 2011 — Dissident Voice
Over the last week, politicians and the mainstream media in the UK have been wheeling out their routine condemnations of the ‘mindless violence’ and ‘thuggery’ (a term whose etymology and connotations of black, hip-hop culture are consistent with the widespread tendency to racialize these events) of the rioters in London and other British cities. Note well the double standard: Continue reading
The Meaning of the British Riots: Corruption At The Top Leads To Lawlessness By The People
13 August 2011 — Washington’s Blog
I’ve repeatedly noted that corruption and lawlessness by our “leaders” encourages lawlessness by everyone else. See this, for example.
Media demand mass arrests, reprisals against UK rioters By Robert Stevens
13 August 2011 — WSWS
Magistrates’ courts in London and other cities in England are handing down the harshest possible sentences to those accused of involvement in the riots that swept across London and other cities in England earlier this week.
UK: Tony McKenna, “Order within the Chaos”
A Soviet diplomat visiting the US once expressed incredulity toward the political content of mainstream newspapers there. In the USSR, he explained to his American interlocutors, it is necessary to threaten members of the press with torture in order to make them toe the correct political line. In the United States, however, you effect a similar result without coercion; the editors and journalists here seem to produce your propaganda of their own volition. How on earth do you manage it?
UK Uprisings Newslinks Roundup 6-13 August 2011
13 August 2011 — williambowles.info
A collection of stories mostly from independent journalists and media sources on the uprisings.
Wandsworth Council issues eviction notice to alleged rioter’s father
13 August 2011
Well it had to happen. Wandsworth Council have started eviction proceedings against the father of the man charged and note charged not convicted (yet). ‘And yea – the sins of the son shall be visited on the father and yea – his father’s father’, and so on and so forth… all the way back to the days of the workhouse.
A council tenant whose son has appeared in court charged in connection with Monday night’s disturbances in Clapham Junction will today (Friday) be served with an eviction notice. — ‘First rioter given eviction notice‘, Wandsworth Council Website, 12 August 2011
After London Police Killing, Media Focus on Problem of Police Restraint By Peter Hart
12 August 2011 — Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
Much of the media coverage of the riots in England dwells on the issue of police restraint. There is a ‘public backlash against police restraint,’ the Washington Post explained (8/11/11), with some wanting ‘a tougher response to the rash of disturbances that has sullied Britain’s image.’ The problem is the ‘seemingly halting, even timorous, policing,’ according to one New York Times story (8/12/11). Another Times piece added:
England riots: Government mulls social media controls
12 August 2011
Updated: More social media abuse arrests
BBC News Yesterday at 17:24
More people are arrested in Wales on suspicion of using social networking sites to incite criminal behaviour after the riots in England.
Re my earlier reference to the insidious nature of the accusations that Twitter, Facebook and BBM “facilitated” the uprisings, lo and behold, we get this:
The government is exploring whether to turn off social networks or stop people texting during times of social unrest.
David Cameron said the intelligence services and the police were exploring whether it was “right and possible” to cut off those plotting violence.
Texting and Blackberry Messenger are said to have been used by some during this week’s riots.
Rights groups said such a measure would be abused and hit the civil liberties of people who have done nothing wrong. — ‘England riots: Government mulls social media controls‘, BBC News, 11 August 2011
Britain’s Riots: Thuggery, Looting, Lawlessness… By the Ruling Class By Finian Cunningham
11 August 2011 — Global Research
After a conflagration of arson attacks, riots and looting in several British cities, including the capital, London, there is a sense of order having been restored from a massive mobilisation of police forces.
The New Dark Age 