Ian Tomlinson Family Campaign

Via Harpymarx. Ian Tonlinson’s family have established a website iantomlinsonfamilycampaign.org.uk

This website and the Ian Tomlinson Family Campaign has been set up by Ian’s family. We are grateful for the huge amount of public support received since Ian’s tragic death on April 1st 2009 at the G20 protests in London. It has been very hard for our family particularly following the release of images of the police assault on Ian emerged. Ian is deeply missed by us and we simply want justice for him.

We may have a long and difficult journey ahead to achieve justice and we will rely on your continued support.

Our family has set up this campaign for the following reasons:

• To demand a full investigation into Ian’s death that scrutinises the individual conduct and operational command tactics of police officers present at the G20 protest and those in command of them when Ian was assaulted and died

• To call for full criminal charges to be brought against any officer whose actions or failure of duty resulted in Ian’s death

• To campaign for change to any police policies, tactics or frequent abuses of power which may effectively endanger people’s lives rather than protect them, so that future deaths and injuries to the public can be prevented

• To raise awareness of any issues we may experience as a family seeking justice through statutory and judicial systems that are a cause for public concern

These are some things you may wish to do for now to support our campaign:

• Keep updated by checking this official family website for press releases, news articles and updates

• Join the official campaign mailing list by e-mail at iantomlinsonfamilycampaign@gmail.com and send any messages of support or ideas to this address.

• Stay in contact – send us updates of any events you have organised including pictures, letters received back, press articles etc.

• Write to your MP

• Direct any witness information to our lawyers so it may be used in evidence

With thanks,

Family of Ian Tomlinson

Pigs

An MP who was involved in last month’s G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds. Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards. Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon. (ht2 LC)

And really, if you think the sobriquet is undeserved why don’t you go watch ‘The Bill’ and drool into your bib like a good citizen.

Eye Pea See Sea

Harpymarx recounts her experience of going to the IPCC to give evidence, a great read (and better than a shed load of the tat on CiF) as she reflects on how she feels when dealing with powerful institutions that can’t necessarily be trusted to be doing the right thing- Art of powerlessness

Whiny Authoritarians Of The Police Federation

The Police Federation the tame right wing company -fake- union for police has displayed the sure sign of authoritarians everywhere: Going apeshit when even a scintilla of their authority is questioned. Hysterically they call Nick Hardwick the head of the IPCC  ‘witchfinder general‘, no really. I think what must of really riled their entitled egos was-

He also said police needed to remember they were “servants, not masters” of the people.

Wow, such radical anti-police campaigning! Of course they are also trying to create a narrow band of acceptable discourse, if the IPCC (which has failed in its remit, a catalogue of delays, rejections and basic failures by Nick Davies of Flat Earth News fame) can become the ‘anti’ police side, then the police have very little to worry about indeed.

Shock Horror, IPCC Whistleblower Says It’s On The Police’s Side

Heralded as a force for change at its launch, the Independent Police Complaints Commission is out of touch, ineffective and takes the side of the police rather than the public, claims former member John Crawley

Only around 100 IPCC investigations, plus 150 police investigations “managed” by the IPCC, are undertaken each year, compared to 29,000 complaints. The majority of those 100 are not even complaints about day-to-day policing, but concern incidents where Article 2 of the Human Rights Act – the police’s duty to safeguard life – may be involved, and by law require IPCC investigation. Some, such as the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube in 2005 and possibly the death last week of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in London, rightly attract great public concern. But the question, “Do you have to be dead before the IPCC takes an interest in your case?”, is too near the truth.

Next week- Large amounts of bear dung found in forested regions.

Blair Peach & Ian Tomlinson, Another Police Murder

If you don’t recall the Blair Peach case well here’s a refresher–

Blair was an east London teacher who had come over from New Zealand. He was also a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Anti Nazi League. He was killed protesting at the Nazi National Front (NF), which was holding a meeting in the predominantly Asian area of Southall, west London. His police killers still walk free.

“As the police rushed past him, one of them hit him on the head with the stick. I was in my garden and saw this quite clearly. He was left sitting against the wall. He tried to get up, but he was shivering and looked very strange. He couldn’t stand. Then the police came back and told him, ‘Move! Come on, move!’ They were very rough with him and I was shocked because it was clear he was seriously hurt.”

When the lockers and some houses of Special Patrol Group members were later searched coshes, knives, bayonets, swords and Nazi regalia were found. The unit was later disbanded. But since then the police have been consistently deployed to defend Nazi events in Britain.

[More detail]

His supporters, The Friends of Blair Peach have now written to the Met to address the whitewash that meant no copper was charged with anything despite the Nazi regalia in one of the attacking cop’s home & locker and witness testimony of police brutality.

OPEN LETTER TO THE HOME SECRETARY AND THE COMMISSIONER OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE

On April 23rd 1979 at a demonstration against the presence of the far right National Front in Southall a friend of mine, Blair Peach, was struck over the head by an, as yet, still unidentified member of the Special Patrol Group and died the next day from injuries sustained from the blow.

A subsequent enquiry into the events of that day by Commander Cass has never been released in full but we are able to say that a number of things have been established. When the lockers of three of the named officers were opened and the home of another was searched the following items were found.

PC White: crowbar, small metal cosh, whip handle, whip, brass handle.

PC Woodcock: US type truncheon, two knives.

Inspector Hopkins: wooden truncheon.

PC Bint’s house revealed bayonets, swords, a cosh and Nazi memorabilia.

All of these things, but especially the Nazi memorabilia found in the home of PC Bint, should have given rise to the greatest of concern about the political orientation of at least some of the members of the SPG. The investigation conducted by Commander Cass at the time has never been made fully public but it believed that he recommended that at least six officers should have been prosecuted for, amongst other things, murder and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Although an early day motion was signed shortly in 1980 by nearly 150 MPs demanding a public enquiry, none was ever conducted. One of the MPs who signed was Jack Straw who, when he became Home Secretary, refused to conduct the very investigation he had asked for nearly two decades earlier.

Various ruses have been used by the Metropolitan Police over the years to prevent the publication of the report. The latest is a refusal under the Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that it ” would affect the immediate family and friends of Blair Peach, owing to the circumstances of the death and the information contained within the report”. As far as is known, the family has never been consulted about this and someone has taken the decision on their behalf.

It is highly unlikely that, had the inquest taken place today, the jury would have returned a verdict of misadventure. A number of factors effecting the original decision of death by misadventure would not have applied. The press and the political establishment almost uniformly blamed the anti fascists for the violence. Press cuttings of the time describe a race riot which it most certainly was not. It was a riot by police officers, which could have been prevented by the Metropolitan Police asking the Home Secretary to ban the march.

The Met themselves must take a great deal of responsibility for the events, not only of that day, but for several years of provocative National Front matches, many of them through areas with high proportions of ethnic minorities, with easily predictable results: vilence, arrests and convictions, damage to property and finally death.

There is no longer any excuse for the Cass report not to be released in full and the longer it is not, the more it looks as if the police are covering up another shameful page in their history. This is not an exercise in retribution or revenge, simply an attempt to get justice for Blair and to establish the fact that people have right to protest peacefully without the risk of injury or death from those whose job it is to preserve the conditions for peaceful protest.

I look forward to hearing from you both.

The Friends of Blair Peach

So 30 years later and…looks like they have done it again, we have already seen the difference between the police version of events and the publics regarding the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests, but now the gap is wider than ever. The version of events propagated through the media by the police-

The man had collapsed within a police cordon set up to contain the crowds who had assembled in central London and the City to protest over the G20 summit. There were 63 arrests on the day.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission was being notified last night. Scotland Yard said the alarm had been raised by a member of the public who spoke to a police officer on a cordon at the junction of Birchin Lane and Cornhill in the City.

He sent two medics through the cordon line and into nearby St Michael’s Alley where they found a man who had stopped breathing. They called for ambulance support at about 7.30pm and moved him back behind the cordon where they gave him cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

“The officers took the decision to move him as during this time a number of missiles – believed to be bottles – were being thrown at them”, said a police statement. The ambulance service took the man to hospital where he died.

A London ambulance spokesman said: “Our staff immediately took over the treatment of the patient and made extensive efforts to resuscitate him both at the scene and on the way to hospital.”

Now what is coming out-

Investigators are examining a series of corroborative accounts that allege Ian Tomlinson, 47, was a victim of police violence in the moments before he collapsed near the Bank of England in the City of London last Wednesday evening. Three witnesses have told the Observer that Mr Tomlinson was attacked violently as he made his way home from work at a nearby newsagents. One claims he was struck on the head with a baton.

Photographer Anna Branthwaite said: “I can remember seeing Ian Tomlinson. He was rushed from behind by a riot officer with a helmet and shield two or three minutes before he collapsed.” Branthwaite, an experienced press photographer, has made a statement to the IPCC.

Another independent statement supports allegations of police violence. Amiri Howe, 24, recalled seeing Mr Tomlinson being hit “near the head” with a police baton. Howe took one of a sequence of photographs that show a clearly dazed Mr Tomlinson being helped by a bystander.

A female protester, who does not want to be named but has given her testimony to the IPCC, said she saw a man she later recognised as Tomlinson being pushed aggressively from behind by officers. “I saw a man violently propelled forward, as though he’d been flung by the arm, and fall forward on his head.

“He hit the top front area of his head on the pavement. I noticed his fall particularly because it struck me as a horrifically forceful push by a policeman and an especially hard fall; it made me wince.”

Mr Tomlinson, a married man who lived alone in a bail hostel, was not taking part in the protests. Initially, his death was attributed by a police post mortem to natural causes. A City of London police statement said: “[He] suffered a sudden heart attack while on his way home from work.”

But this version of events was challenged after witnesses recognised the dead man from photographs that were published on Friday.

So there’s a lesson in this, they get away with it and like any good recidivist they do it again. Now then a reminder of the sort of police involved in the G20 operation, just swap SPG for TSG –

The Met has confirmed that since 1992 all six (TSG) officers involved in the Ahmad assault had been subject to at least 77 complaints. When lawyers for Ahmad asked for details of these allegations it emerged that the police had “lost” several large mail sacks detailing at least 30 of the complaints.

Created in January 1987, the territorial support group (TSG) is on the frontline of policing in the capital, and its 720 officers are often the first on the scene of major disturbances. TSG units have policed every march and demonstration in London over the past two decades, including the poll tax protests, BNP disturbances and “stop the City” demonstrations. They also provide anti-terrorism support and have firearm and taser expertise. They will be on the frontline again next month when they help to police protesters who are expected to gather for the G20 summit in London.

Oh and-

More than 1,000 serving police officers in Britain have criminal convictions, the Liberal Democrats have reported. [Police Service of Northern Ireland refused to answer the Lib Dems’ request for information.] More than half of the 1,063 convictions relate to speeding or other motoring offences; 77 officers have convictions for violence and 96 for dishonesty.

Don’t have nightmares.

Haven Is a Place on Earth

TIEAs only tackle tax evasion and we need to address tax avoidance, too, if the likes of Barclays are to be stopped from undertaking activities recently disclosed by this paper. A new form of accounting called country-by-country reporting could tackle this issue and make it immensely hard for corporations to hide money in tax havens, even if legally. The opportunity to introduce this has been overlooked.

–Richard Murphy

No, not the holiday camps. List of tax havens, promulgated at the G20 but published by the OECD, which shows how proud the G20 are of dealing with it. The list is fiddled, the laws needed remain a remote possibility-

Richard Murphy:- The Crown Dependencies of Jersey Guernsey and Isle of Man are not on the list because they have signed a series of what can at best be called token tax information exchange agreements with places like the Faroe Islands.

And there is also the bizarre way in which Hong Kong and Macau are listed – for which I suspect the Crown Dependencies are excluded as a corollary. They were the bargaining chip.

This is going to create real political difficulties for the process – a quick straw poll at Excel tonight amongst people I did not know showed universal bizarre reaction to the exclusion of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

And as he writes in the Guardian-

So there is no doubt – April 2 2009 is a very important date in the process of ending tax haven abuse. It will go down in the history of that campaign. But it is not the day when the end of tax havens and banking secrecy was announced. It was the day the process really started, and that process will need a lot of work and thought before it delivers the results we want.

Is a time of crisis really the time for fudging, compromising and bartering? That the G20 do not properly and immediately tackle tax havens tells us the crisis will remain a lot less severe for the wealthy and corrupt. And who the elites answer to and make their peace with while lecturing us on democracy and sacrifice. Those who are to pay will be those with the least ability to pay…and for other people’s frauds, irrational greed and Washington consensus fundamentalism. And whatever Gordon says, the UK is widely considered a whole nation that operates as a tax haven and unlike you or me he was in the best position of anyone on planet Earth for the last 12 years to do something about that. Unless I’ve misunderstood that whole Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister thing.

*cough* April 2007

the web site of UK Trade and Investment, a government sponsored site on which there is a blatant article promoting the UK as a tax haven, admittedly written by PWC. It says:

“This may come as a surprise to many of you but whilst the UK lacks the climate of a traditional tax haven, it does have many of the tax advantages of a traditional tax haven. It is also perhaps the only tax haven which has the high degree of respectability sought by the international business community.

Provided that you are “not domiciled” for UK tax purposes, it is possible to structure your tax affairs to minimise your tax liability considerably. The following explains the concepts and outlines the basis of taxation for non-UK domiciled individuals.“

Damn you Internet, why must you not help put every damn lie we are fed into the memory hole! Still, enjoy the corporate media (there’s a clue there) spread the G20 Good News Bible. I am looking to see what they did with this historic opportunity to help not destroy this planet thing we all depend for life on…still looking.

No.10 Bars Some Charities From G20 Summit

War on Want and the World Development Movement mysteriously had their accreditation withdrawn by direct orders from Downing Street. Thus ‘consensus’ can be created from a narrow field of preselected options-

The government risks being seen as unbelievably petty if it has really decided only to allow non-critical civil society organisations to have access to major events such as the G20 summit. We know that Gordon Brown is keen for people to forget his role in having promoted the “light touch” version of free market capitalism, which has brought us to the current economic crisis. Yet would he really stoop to excluding people who might dare to recall this awkward fact?

More importantly, excluding critical voices means that there risks being less media coverage of what the G20 has omitted to do when it comes up with the statement to conclude its meeting. The “deal or no deal” fixation sets the summit up as a game show in which the only concern is whether all leaders can sign up to a joint communiqué. This is setting the bar almost as low as it can go.

Yet there are real issues which make the summit’s outcome of long-term importance and which are conspicuous by their absence. Who will dare to question the legitimacy of the G20, which excludes over 170 countries from the debating chamber at a time when the UN is pressing for a more inclusive process? Who will question the wisdom of giving more power and more money to the IMF, which has shown itself an abject failure in previous crises and continues to impose damaging conditions on countries which turn to it for help?

G20 Citizen Reportage

Harpymarx on the scene.

Climate Camp Galleries.

Jotman’s on the inside.

This Camera Kills Fascists

If you are going to any G20 demo please make sure you have a camera + good batteries and spares (also spare tape, memory cards whatever). Stills are better than nothing, video with sound is best. Get a good mix of close ups of action and longer shots to show the context, both are essential. When it’s the fuzz’s word against yours they will always get away with it unless there is documentary evidence plus it will make it untenable for corporate media to whitewash police violence if it is all over the web. By most signs the fuzz plan on using a great deal of violence to protect the ruling classes pursuit of Shock Doctrine ‘reforms’. Good luck, take care!