Police action at protest (From Ledbury Reporter)

Police action at protest

9:23am Friday 12th September 2008

I WRITE in reference to the recent demonstration in Ledbury against the animal testing laboratory Sequani and in support of Sean Kirtley who has been imprisoned for protesting against the company.

Firstly; the police were anxious to talk to organisers and contacted the Gazette and various animal rights organisations but of course now the courts can lock people up for this activity then it is hardly surprising no one was interested in talking to the authorities. In the end the police organised a route to march down. The march and demonstration was generally good humoured if noisy with only a couple of arrests for obstruction.

I don't want to go into the rights and wrongs of the subject of vivisection but I wish to comment on the behaviour of the police, while they were mostly polite and didn't go dressed in armour the thing I found quite disturbing is the use of video and still cameras to intimidate members of the public during a demonstration. While it is perfectly lawful to use photography to collect evidence and catch idiots throwing bricks it seems completely out of order to poke a camera into some ones face or in our case under a brolly, my wife and I were subjected to this on at least one occasion. This appears to be an act of bullying against ordinary members of the public who wish to show dissent or protest in a peaceful fashion.

The police are using this as intimidation and a court in London has prosecuted people for preventing the police from taking photos at demonstrations (by waving flags in front of them). The National Union of Journalists are concerned enough about the police collecting evidence on them that they have spoken out at the TUC this year and made a short film about the intimidation they receive whilst covering certain stories. This surveillance culture we have got into is getting out of control and the authorities are using it in a way that makes ordinary people reluctant to stand up and protest for fear of getting into the legal system via video and other forms of surveillance.

I will be contacting the police to ask what they will be doing with any pictures they took of myself and my wife.

STEVE PRICE, Pound Bank Road , Malvern.