Niel - O.T.R.O

Trafalgar Square Occupied during the student protest and quickly evicted…

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At least six people were arrested in London after setting up a camp in Trafalgar Square while they were trying to establish a third camp in the city in order to galvanise the general population and remind people about the upcoming November 30th strike, which is expected to be the biggest British strike since 1926. They made use of the student procession passing close to invade the square.

The two previous camps of OccupyLondon, St. Paul’s and Finsbury Square are now totally full of people but the movement is still growing. The principal objective of this new occupation was to give back to the 99% their central square in order to mobilize massively and coordinate the next general strike. Was invited the same day to speak in this new people’s tribune: the taxi drivers, the electricity worker, the cleaners from Sodexo, the students and of course the occupier of London in a big convergence of fights. video

After one hour of camping Nelson’s column’s feet, just in front of the National Gallery, Police told demonstrators using speakers they should leave the area. As they did not, agents just entered the camp, which at the time had already more than twenty five very well-ordered tents, and started removing its habitants. The police officer asked to the resistant if they was part of the student procession, braking the official road of a demonstration is illegal in UK and that was the only charge against the occupiers, the occupiers answered negatively but the police handcuffed them without reason. A journalist who was sitting in a tent said that he had proves that he was not in the protest but the police officer refused to see the video. video

In the very beginning, the Police tried to convince demonstrators to leave using just words, but without any legal support. However, as people decided to resist peacefully at the place, cops started removing persons by force. Previously, the Police had controlled all the entries to Trafalgar Square. Easily there were two hundreds (or more) agents at the square in that moment.

Surrounded by dozens of cameras, the one hour old camp was evicted. One of the demonstrators shouted in pain as the Police handcuffed him. He said they hurt his hand. “This is [what] democracy looks like”, he added as the officers took him out of the square. He also asked “What was my crime?”, but he received no answer. No officer informed them of their rights despite some of them demanding it several times.