Proudly Anti-Fascist - An Open Letter to Clapton FC's Chief Executive

Yesterday, Forest Gate based amateur football club Clapton FC posted a statement from its chief executive Vince McBean on its website saying that “over the last 48 hours” it had “received several emails from individuals stating their concerns about some of the supporters at Clapton” - notably, that Clapton's fans are left-wing, anti-fascist and that as a result, they might provoke “EDL style demos” at the club's home ground. McBean's response is completely appalling and so this is the letter I emailed to him this evening.

Dear Mr McBean

Today I saw the 'AntiFa' statement posted on Clapton's website and I was so appalled by it that I felt I had to write to you.

I am one of the new supporters who, as you mention, are joining the club all the time. I've lived in Newham, within walking distance of the Old Spotted Dog, for nearly 25 years but my first game was only a month ago. Like so many others, I found my way to the club through word-of-mouth, after pressure from an old friend who raved about the brilliant atmosphere created by the supporters. When I eventually made it to a match, it turned out that everything I'd been told – about how welcoming the fans are, about their principled stand against racism, homophobia and fascist extremism, about the wit and lack of bigotry in the chanting – turned out to be completely true. That's the reason why I now have a Clapton FC scarf hanging up the front door of my flat.

Your statement issued yesterday mentioned the club's “strong ethos... of not tolerating discrimination or racism of any kind”. It is an ethos I share: since 1992 I have been a management committee member of the Newham Monitoring Project, east London's oldest anti-racist organisation based just down the road from Clapton FC on Harold Road. Our work involves the kind of community-based advice and support for local people suffering racist hate crime that rarely receives enough publicity but it does mean that discrimination and racism are issues I feel extremely qualified to talk about.

And I can tell promise you this: when a bunch of far-right keyboard warriors start making unsubstantiated e-mail threats intended solely to provoke a reaction, the last thing you want to do is take them at their word and issue an apology over some non-existent 'offence' or inappropriate conduct you haven't even investigated.

Actually, that's not entirely correct – the last thing you want to do is to damage and debase your club's reputation by insulting, supposedly in the name of intolerance to “discrimination or racism of any kind,” your loyal and genuinely anti-racist supporters in an desperate attempt to try and appease some obnoxious right-wing extremists.

At the very least, your statement needs removing immediately and amending so that it makes clear that, as far as the club is aware, there is no basis for any of the malicious claims made in the emails you have received. However, I think you also owe an apology to Clapton FC's fans, old and new – the implication that there might actually be some foundation to these ludicrous allegations is an affront to all of us.

I look forward to the removal and amendment of the website statement as a matter of urgency.

Olympic Domestic Extremist - An Interview on NuSound Radio

This is an interview I gave today to Pete Day of east London community radio station NuSound 92FM, on the recent release of my 'domestic extremist' police surveillance file.

Secret Diary of an Olympic Domestic Extremist

This article first appeared on the Network for Police Monitoring website

After reports in June last year that Newham Monitoring Project, the east London community group I've been part of for over 20 years, was spied on during the 1990s by undercover Metropolitan police officers, I've wanted to find out if information about me is held on secret police databases. The Guardian reported estimates of up to 9000 people classified by police as potential 'domestic extremists' and so to find out if I'm one of them, I submitted a 'subject access request' under data protection legislation.

The Met were supposed to comply within 40 days but it has taken over six months and the intervention of the Information Commissioner's Office to finally receive a response. If the details provided are complete, they confirm that the National Domestic Extremism Unit (NDEU), part of the Met's SO15 Counter Terrorism Command, began logging my activities in April 2011 because I spoke at Netpol's 'Stand Up To Surveillance' conference - ironically, an event debating the rise of unaccountable police intelligence gathering on protests and local communities.

What is a 'domestic extremist'? There is no legal definition: it's a term invented by the police. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) says it is "generally used to describe the activity of individuals or groups carrying out criminal acts of direct action to further their protest campaign". ACPO also claims that because the majority of protesters are peaceful, they are "never considered 'extremist'... The term only applies to individuals or groups whose activities go outside the normal democratic process and engage in crime and disorder in order to further their campaign". In 2012, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary said in a review of police intelligence units concerned with protest that "the term 'domestic extremism' should be limited to threats of harm from serious crime and serious disruption to the life of the community arising from criminal activity".

How, then, does someone who has never been charged or convicted of any criminal activity - I've never even been arrested - end up on the 'domestic extremist' database? The answer seems to involve speaking and writing about the security preparations for the Olympics. The NDEU was evidently obsessed with the Counter Olympics Network (CON) and I was covertly photographed speaking at its conference at Toynbee Hall in January 2012. However, my police file also records a Olympics-related talk I gave at Netpol’s ‘Kettle Police Powers’ conference in May 2012 and recounts, in some detail, the comments I made on behalf of Newham Monitoring Project at a Save Leyton Marsh public meeting the following month. As a result, I was logged entering the Olympic Park with a day ticket at the end of July, with a thorough description and the comment “believed to be a member of CON”.

However, the ‘intelligence’ gathered at these events and or subsequently pulled from posts on my blog was either hugely inaccurate or simply fictional: at no time, for example, did I ever become CON’s ‘Security Advisor’ or ever suggest ‘shutting tube stations by triggering fire alarms’. The NDEU file also suggests I “openly stated that the Olympics are likely to be targeted by smaller, unpublicised affinity group style actions”, which is an mischievous spin on a piece I wrote in July 2012, on how the problems facing anti-Olympic campaigners who had bent over backwards to negotiate with the police had probably given the case for DIY affinity group protest “a tremendous boost”.

Having made it onto the police intelligence-gatherers’ radar, my file includes my email and phone details and an old photo taken in 2010 by my friend Louise Whittle (lifted from her Harpymarx blog) at the Trafalgar Square flashmob organised by “I’m a Photographer Not A Terrorist” – yet again, coincidentally, an event concerned with oppressive police surveillance. It also makes repeated mention of involvement in Netpol and records my participation in the ‘Save Wanstead Flats’ residents’ campaign that opposed the siting of a temporary Olympic police base on public land close to where I worked. Involving public meetings, lobbying MPs and even a legal challenge in the High Court, this must surely represent activities that are quintessentially within “the normal democratic process” and yet details of my employer, a respected Newham charity that supported local people to set up the campaign, were added to the file.

The thing that angers me the most, though, is that the Metropolitan Police had no compunction in sharing information with the NDEU that was received when I became the victim of a crime, after criminal damage to my home. The file notes that this confirmed my mobile number and address and added my landline telephone number.

As this information was gathered, the file notes: “there is no suggest (sic) that BLOWE has actively engaged in any Direct Action” but “takes up many forms of left-wing activism” and “is known for his involvement in Counter Olympics Network, Save Wanstead Flats and Network for Police Monitoring”. This, apparently, was enough to justify continuing surveillance (I get a mention for attending the UK Uncut bedroom tax protest in April 2013) but it’s a very, very long way from “threats of harm from serious crime and serious disruption to the life of the community arising from criminal activity”.

Let’s face it: if I can end up with a National Domestic Extremist Unit database entry then almost anyone involved in any kind of ‘left-wing activism’ can too. That’s why I’m urging other campaigners to pursue the arduous process of their own subject access requests – and why the only way to stop the police from relentlessly gathering unnecessary 'intelligence' is to shut down the domestic extremist database completely.

How To Find Out What Secret Police Surveillance Says About You

On the face of it, this might seem like a very niche post. I've put this together primarily for activists involved in Newham Monitoring Project (NMP) and police custody deaths campaigners (including individual families and people at INQUEST) who may have been targeted for undercover surveillance revealed by the Guardian this week. It's based on my own Subject Access Request to the Metropolitan Police, submitted on Tuesday.

However, the steps below are just as applicable to anyone wanting to find out what personal details are held about them by the police, for example on the National Domestic Extremism database. There is a 2011 guide on the Guardian website - note that some details (such as who to make payment to) have since changed.

Why make a request?

The revelation that undercover surveillance by the Special Demonstration Squad during the 1990s targeted the Lawrence family, police custody death campaigners and organisations that supported them - people involved in lawful campaigning activities - is alarming but incomplete. The Guardian's report doesn't name of the SDS officer who targeted NMP and we have no idea how widespread the surveillance was or what was included in the so-called 'intelligence' reports.

The Metropolitan Police are likely to resist calls for the release of this information, but a flood of Data Protection Act Subject Access Requests will at least force the Met to examine their records and confirm or deny whether information was gathered. They could potentially help everyone to understand whether, as I suspect, the 'intelligence' was nothing more than gossip and rumour designed to smear campaigners.

As the process involves handing over a certain amount of personal information (including your address and your date and place of birth), it is only worthwhile submitting a Subject Access Request if you think there is a chance that your details are held on police records. There is no point feeding the surveillance officers with information they don't already possess.

Writing a Subject Access Request

First, download MPS Subject Access Form 3019 - there is a Microsoft Word version or a PDF on the Metropolitan Police website.

After completing the personal information sections, Section 3 asks:

Please specify exactly what information you require (e.g. Crime Report)?

I have written:

I require any information about myself gathered by the former Special Demonstration Squad and subsequently by the National Domestic Extremism Unit.

In response to the question "What happened to cause you to have contact with the police?", I have added:

Recent news coverage has indicated that undercover officers from the Special Demonstration Squad were responsible for covert surveillance on a number of groups including the Newham Monitoring Project (NMP) and justice campaigns concerned with deaths in police custody. As I have been actively involved in NMP since 1990 and was the secretary from 1997 of the United Families and Friends Campaign, the umbrella group for many of these campaigns, I wish to find out whether this undercover surveillance gathered information on me.

This is obviously personal to me. If you were involved in what the Guardian refers to as "associated groups", such as a family campaign, INQUEST or another organisations, then you need to add you own concerns why the SDS may have included you in its nefarious activities.

Under "When did this happen?" I have said:

Potentially between 1990 and 2008 for the former Special Demonstration Squad and from 2008 until the present date for the National Domestic Extremism Unit

The National Domestic Extremism Unit took over the work of the Special Demonstration Squad in 2008. If, like me, you are still a campaigner, then it is worth finding out whether there is any more recent 'intelligence' about you.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe may have told the London Assembly today that "we are now in a different context... the main reassurance I can offer you is that we are aware it has been alleged in the past, I don't want it to happen in the future... and I don't believe it is happening at the moment." However, if the National Domestic Extremism Unit is prepared to gather data on an 88-year-old man sitting in a folding chair drawing sketches at demonstrations, then it is capable of anything.

In response to the question "Where did this happen and how was it reported?", I've have said:

Unknown – the alleged covert surveillance most likely took place in the London borough of Newham but potentially could have happened anywhere in London.

Again, this will need amending, depending on your individual circumstances.

Submitting your Subject Access Request

You need to send a cheque, British postal order or international bankers draft for £10 payable to 'Mayors Office for Policing and Crime' and two forms of identification that "provide sufficient information to prove your name, date of birth, current address and signature." This means a driving licence, medical card, birth/adoption certificate or passport, along with a recent utility bill or bank statement.

I sent a copy of my passport and a photocopy of a gas bill - both a bank statement and definitely a telephone bill seemed like a really bad idea!

The form, payment and identification should be sent to:

Metropolitan Police Service
Public Access Office
PO Box 57192
London
SW6 1SF

Don;t forget to keep a copy. If you do not receive confirmation that the data protection officer has received your request within two weeks, ring the Public Access Office on 020 7161 3500 and ask to speak to the data protection unit, or email publicAccessOffice@met.police.uk.

What happens next?

You are entitled under the Data Protection Act to receive an answer within 40 days but no-one, it seems, ever receives a response in that time. The Metropolitan Police is so bad at responding to requests for information that in April, it was one of three public authorities the Information Commissioner’s Office said it planned to monitor over concerns about its timeliness.

The Met may decide to withhold information, but it must clearly explain why. As the activities of the SDS relate to historic surveillance of lawful campaigning, it will be interesting to see what excuses they come up with.

You can challenge any denial of information by lodging an appeal, and asking the department to reconsider the decision. The Network for Police Monitoring (which Newham Monitoring Project is a member of)  is currently putting together guidance on following up Subject Access Requests and when it is ready, I'll make this available.

UPDATE

Thanks to Emily for this: a Freedom of Information request from last year confirms that Special Demonstration Squad data "was amalgamated into a MPS system and is not held in a standalone searchable database". This is likely to cause delays but does suggest that the data exists and was kept.

We Must Have A Far-Reaching Inquiry Into Police Spying

This is a piece I wrote for Red Pepper on today's revelations that undercover police spied on Newham Monitoring Project and campaigns for justice for those that died custody

Today’s new development in the long-running exposure of undercover police targeting campaigners has suddenly became very personal. The Guardian reported that covert officers from the former Special Demonstration Squad had spied on a number of organisations concerned with corruption and harassment within the Metropolitan Police, including the east London community group Newham Monitoring Project (NMP), and on justice campaigns for people who had died in custody. I have been an activist for NMP for 23 years and from 1997 to 2007 was the secretary of the United Families and Friends Campaign, an umbrella group of custody death families. It seems likely my name appeared in some of the secret so-called ‘intelligence’ reports.

I’m disturbed that NMP was targeted but not entirely shocked. In some ways it might be seen as a positive reflection on our effectiveness in exposing cases of police misconduct and how worried senior officers had become about the damage that the actions of some of their officers was inflicting on the Met's reputation. I certainly know the police have never been able to get their heads around what motivates independent grassroots activism: how campaigns emerge from practical casework rather than, say, an attempt to recruit people to a party and how supporting individuals and families suffering injustice makes the anger that drives a desire for answers feel very personal.

Furthermore, the fact that a decision was made to spy on an organisation whose events were open to the public and whose activities were reported in great detail in our annual reports and publicity says more about the Metropolitan police than it does about NMP: it illustrates the deep level of resistance to accountability within London’s police during the period when the Special Demonstration Squad were snooping around our activities.

However, I’m appalled and angry too, that campaigns NMP advised and supported that were set up and sustained by bereaved families struggling for justice for their loved ones after a death in police custody – always in the face of overwhelming hostility from every part of the criminal justice system – may have been targeted for covert surveillance, for no other reason than to try and undermine them. I can only imagine that, in the absence of any actual ‘plotting’ by these campaigns, undercover officers were simply busy trying to find out more about families' legal strategies or looking for gossip and rumour that they could use to smear ordinary people forced into extraordinary circumstances by grief and the need to find the truth.

On top of the allegations of serious sexual misconduct and betrayal by undercover police and the stories of identities stolen from dead babies, the shameful targeting of the bereaved now means the case for an independent public inquiry is overwhelming. The Home Secretary’s insistence that the current investigation by Derbyshire’s Chief Constable is adequate lacks any credibility. We need a far-reaching and robust inquiry to find out what so-called ‘intelligence’ was gathered by officers, who ordered the surveillance and how it was used. Just as importantly, we urgently need to know to what extent the successors to the Special Demonstration Squad, such as the National Domestic Extremism Unit, are still secretly targeting campaigners.

Personally, I and other NMP activists also really want to know the fake identity and the real name of the officer that we may have inadvertently worked with in good faith. I want to know what kind of person pretends to support campaigns for justice but instead was secretly working to try and prevent the truth from ever emerging. For the sake of the transparency and accountability we have always demanded, the Metropolitan police owe all of us that, especially all the people we have supported over the years.

Launch of New Local Activists' Network "The People's Republic of Newham"

I am one of those who has long felt that local campaigners would really benefit from closer cooperation, so I'm pleased to be part of the launch of "The People's Republic of Newham", a network of local independent activists who want to try and help and support community campaigns by sharing the wealth of knowledge, skills and experience in the borough.

Local communities are increasingly required to using campaigning tactics to defend services, resources and rights in the face of indifference from largely unaccountable local institutions.There is also an urgent need for local campaigns to support and learn from each other. The "People's Republic of Newham" is an attempt to bring together campaigners and look at mutual support and skill-sharing. It currently organising on Facebook but if there is enough interest, it can expand to an email group and meetings, depending on what members feel is most helpful.

Let's see. Meanwhile, please invite other local activists you know and who you think should be part of the network to get in touch. You can find the page at https://www.facebook.com/PeoplesRepublicofNewham

Bah Humbug! Newham Council Halts 'Too Political' Performance by Disabled Theatre Group

It has been some time since I have been able to add a new blog post, due to the total shoulder replacement operation I had on 7 November and the long period of recuperation that followed (t was only yesterday that I was finally allowed to type with both hands). So with Christmas approaching, I wanted to share a festive story, one that reflects badly on Newham council and its attitude towards disabled people but is eventually heart-warming in its proof of the power of direct action.

In 2011, the council started to provide free space at Katherine Road Community Centre for a community group of disabled performers, Act Up Theatre, to rehearse and perform their play "Changing Attitudes". This year the group was asked to perform a new play at a council Christmas event held yesterday at the Old Town Hall in Stratford.

However, just days before the performance, the group was told that it had been cancelled, because the play, "Atos Stories", was not festive enough and too political.. A statement from the council said:, "we do not consider political satire or potentially distressing material to be in keeping with the theme or tone of this event". .This is despite the fact that, a month beforehand, Act Up Theatre had provided information about the play and were advised the council were happy for them to perform.

In a statement on Monday, Act Up said:

"We are deeply disappointed that despite having information about the play for over a month, Newham Council have not chosen to discuss this with Act Up until the 14th December. We are also disappointed that the Council hasn't stopped to consider the enormous barriers Act Up have overcome to even perform the play. The group have been working hard for the last three months, they deserve to be treated with far more respect than this.

We wrote Atos Stories because we were mad at Atos. We wanted people with disabilities and without to have vehicle to challenge the Work Capability Assessment in a creative and dramatic way. We thought Atos might stop that from happening. We never thought a local council would."

Yesterday, members of the group picketed the council's event, briefly blocking the entrance.to the Old Town Hall. Proving the immensely positive impact of direct action, embarrassed council officers have apologised for what they called a 'fatal error' in the way they had dealt with the situation and have hurriedly promised to give Act Up an opportunity to perform at another council event in January.

In 2013, it might be a good idea too for the group to re-stage its play "Changing Attitudes" for the benefit of council staff, for it seems that some attitudes towards disabled people haven't changed that much, despite the repeated pledges made in the approach to the Paralympics this summer. Sadly,. Newham council seems more than happy to associate itself with Paralympians wrapped in the Union flag, but it baulks at the idea of people with disabilities who are political and justifiably angry about their treatment by Atos.

If you get a chance, do check out the Atos Christmas Carol Song Sheet, which is superb: all together now:

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,
Let nothing ye dismay,
For Atos your good saviour
will take your pains away,
And force you down to Tesco
To work till Christmas Day

Oh Tidings of Comfort and Joy, Comfort and Joy!

More information on the campaign against Atos can be found on the Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) website at www.dpac.uk.net

Occupy The Night

On Saturday I went to the Bishopsgate Institute to listen to the documentary photographer Ed Thompson talk about photographing the Occupy London protest outside St Paul's Cathedral, an event that was part of the Photomonth East London International Photography Festival.

I love the idea of turning images into a multimedia presentation, something that Ed generously shared some suggestions about after his talk. I plan to put something together about Newham Monitoring Project's Community Legal Observer project during this summer's Olympics. Meanwhile, here is Ed's great presentation, with spoken word poetry by an occupier called J.J.

Mostly Harmless - Pictures from Saturday's TUC March

Flick here for full screen.

Book Event: Still Counting Sri Lanka's Hidden Dead

On Friday 16 November, former BBC foreign correspondent Frances Harrison will be discussing her book Still Counting the Dead - Survivors of Sri Lanka's Hidden War with the Sri Lankan born artist and writer.Roma Tearne, at the Trinity Community Centre in Manor Park. The event is organised by Newham Bookshop, in partnership with Newham Monitoring Project..

Harrison covered the civil war in Sri Lanka from 2000 to 2004 and has written the first account of the end of the least reported major conflict of recent times. She is one of the few foreign journalists to maintain contact with those trapped inside the war zone until the very end. In 2009, as the war between the Tamil Tiger guerrillas and the government reached its bloody climax, thousands of schoolchildren, doctors, farmers, fishermen, nuns and other civilians were caught in the crossfire. However, the Sri Lankan government maintained a strict media blackout so that the world was unaware of their suffering. A United Nations Panel of Experts has reported that estimates of up to 40,000 dead are credible and has called for war-crimes investigations. Still Counting the Dead recounts the human stories and faces behind the war.

Friday 16 November  2012
at 7 pm at The Trinity Centre, East Avenue, Manor Park E12.
Nearest tube: East Ham
Tickets are only £3 and available from Newham Bookshop: telephone 020 8552 9993 to reserve


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A Different View Of 'Successful' Olympic Policing

On Saturday, I attended a really fun celebration, at The Arches in Canning Town, of the work carried out by Community Legal Observers (CLOs) organised by Newham Monitoring Project during this summer's Olympics. It included a first look at some of the key trends that emerged from the evidence they gathered, which the organisation plans to document in more detail in a forthcoming report and resource aimed specifically at young people. The event also meant that CLOs could also receive a surprise memento of their volunteering during August and September - a medal bearing the famous 'human rights salute' protest by Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Peter Normal at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games.

Volunteer Community Legal Observers pose with their 'Olympic' medals at Saturday's event

As Newham Monitoring Project's Director Estelle du Boulay explained on Saturday, the evidence collected by CLOs paints a very different picture to the overwhelmingly upbeat impression of Olympic policing painted by the Association of Chief Police Officers. Away from the main venues, on side streets and estates, young people in particular complained of the excessive use of stop & search powers by officers who were often rude and aggressive, as well as incidents involving illegal strip searching in the backs of police vans. A number of young people chose to avoid Stratford altogether or made sure they travelled in groups no larger than two, for fear of the dispersal zone restrictions in place. CLOs also reported consistently positive feedback from local people to the rights cards that NMP distributed and a belief that basic civil liberties still needing protecting, even when an event as huge as the Olympics was taking place. However, there were reports that people arrested were denied the right to call NMP's 24-hour emergency helpline and cases of threatening and intimidatory behaviour by individual officers towards volunteers who were observing the policing .of the Games.

A full report with case studies will be published by Newham Monitoring Project shortly and I'll try and summarise it as soon as it is available. Meanwhile, I too am now a proud recipient of one of the incredibly rare CLO medals, which look like this:

Rebellious Weekend

This afternoon I headed over to Newham Bookshop's stall at Goldsmith Row Book Market, where Clive Bloom was signing copies of his interesting new book "Riot City: Protest and Rebellion in the Capital". I will review the book soon, but Bloom argues that the unprecedented level of unrest in London over the last 12 years has turned the capital into "a battleground for a host of new demands and new ideological standpoints, so much so that protesters and authority alike have had to invent new tactics to cope with the pressure of new demands". There was plenty of evidence of these new demands and new tactics of civil disobedience this weekend, with activists from Climate Siren closing Tower Bridge for around an hour yesterday afternoon, Unite Against Fascism successfully blocking the route of an EDL march in Walthamstow and disabled activists teaming up with UK Uncut to blockade the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Atos headquarters on Friday.

Eleven anti-EDL protesters were arrested, as were three Climate Siren activists and one campaigner outside the DWP. Disabled People Against Cuts has complained of a heavy-handed response from the police. Here's more on two of the weekend's direct action protests:

A People's History of Protest in Newham

History has a habit of repeating itself. Thus the Occupy movement, it turns out, has long forgotten ancestors in Plaistow: at the turn of the twentieth century, unemployed workers occupied land in an attempt to set up a farm colony called the Triangle Camp. The local council brought legal action for trespass against them, they were evicted and then tried to reoccupy the site, leading to scuffles with the police and the imprisonment of one Benjamin Cunningham. Nor are deaths in police custody an entirely modern phenomenon: in 1931, clashes between the police and the unemployed outside West Ham town hall in Stratford led to the savage beating of a protester with the unlikely name of Walter Disney, who was arrested and died on his way to hospital. In a echo of the claims made about the death of Ian Tomlinson, police alleged that his death was the result of him falling and hitting the road.

These stories were part of a fascinating talk today on the history of protest in Newham, held at the temporary 'People's Museum and Gallery of Newham' on Stratford High Street. In a little over an hour, Geoff Bell, chair of Eastside Community Heritage, covered a very broad period from early examples of racism, against the Irish in 1781, up to activism by Newham's black communities in the late 1980s. In between was a reminder of the rich history of dissent that this borough can take pride in. It includes the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (who lived on Upton Lane in Forest Gate) and her brother Samuel Gurney, the anti-slavery campaigner, as well as the Coloured Men's Institute set up in Canning Town by Kamal Chunchie, the militancy of dockworkers led by Jack Dash and the community resistance to racism and fascism that led to to the creation of the Newham Monitoring Project (NMP) in 1981.

It still gives me particular satisfaction to know that NMP continues to contribute to the long history of anti-racist struggle in the borough, despite the unsuccessful efforts of its politically ambitious first worker to shut the project down in the late 1990s. However, there is much more to tell – other stories of protest in Newham, against the racist murder of Panchadcharam Sahitharan in 1991 and the unlawful killing in police custody of Ibrahima Sey in 1996, against the 'war on terror' and the war in Iraq during the last decade – were not covered in today's talk. In many cases, these stories (like NMP's refusal to give up when its council funding was cut) have not yet been written, although I hope that soon they will. Nevertheless, in a borough so often associated nowadays with an outright rejection of dissent by our imperious Mayor and his council colleagues, it was helpful to be reminded today that protest has always played an important part in the social fabric of Newham. Long may it continue to do so.

The People's Museum and Gallery of Newham is based at the former West Ham Labour Party offices at 306 High Street, Stratford E15 1AJ and continues until the end of October. Geoff Bell will told a talk on the Coloured Men’s Institute and Kamal Chunchie on 1 October at 4pm.

Olympic Exploitation - Not OK Anywhere

On Sunday evening, as crowds were leaving the Olympic Park in Stratford after the men's 100m final, War on Want projected a giant video message onto a nearby building, in protest at the exploitation of Adidas workers around the world.

While almost everyone, it seems, is currently losing all sense of proportion and critical faculty  over this summer's Games, this action by the brilliant campaigning charity was a reminder of the other, darker side of the Olympics. Adidas has already sold around £100 million of Olympic-themed clothing whilst workers making its goods are paid poverty wages and are having to skip meals to survive.  In Cambodia, for example, workers receive £10 a week basic pay, are forced to work overtime, cannot afford decent food and live in squalid conditions. In April, the Independent reported that Indonesian workers, making Adidas clothing worn by Team GB athletes and Games volunteers, were working up to 65 hours a week for poverty pay and suffered physical and verbal abuse. Meanwhile, Adidas recorded £559 million profits  in 2011, with full-year net profits in 2012 expected to rise by 15-17%. In contrast to the company's poverty-stricken workers in the Global South, Adidas chief executive Herbert Hainer received €5.9 million (£4.6 million) in "compensation" last year.

One of the things I'm looking forward to after the Olympics are finally over is the return of decent people getting angry about this kind of thing. It can't come a moment too soon.

Update: Newham Council Jumps On Olympic Brandwagon

Whatever the sporting achievements this summer, it is certain that we will remember the 2012 Olympics for the extraordinary lengths that London organisers have gone to in oppressively protecting the brands of its corporate sponsors. Even Michael Payne, the former marketing director at the International Olympic Committee who devised the rules to prevent 'ambush marketing, has said “the controls and protections have gone too far”. LOCOG chair Lord Coe has insisted that he has a responsibility to protect the commercial "rights of sponsors" but managed to create even more confusion about what kind of t-shirt and trainers were acceptable for a visitor to wear inside the Olympic Park.

This bring us back to the banning of Community Legal Observers from Stratford Park. As I noted on Monday, Newham council security guards had accused Newham Monitoring Project voluneers of handing out material that was "making it easy for criminals and giving them tips". Later that day, the council's Head of Events Sue Meiners came down to the park in person to offer a new justification for excluding the legal observers: the accusation that they  would cause littering by handing out legal rights cards.

Now the local authority has cobbled together a new explanation, one that Lord Coe and the Olympic brand enforcers would be proud of. In an e-mail to NMP, Newham's Head of Communications Douglas Trainer (who some may recognise as a New Labour former NUS President) claims that a community event in a public park has been designated a 'corporate event' and as a result, the council does not allow organisations "to come into the park with a branded presence - including the wearing of branded shirts or bibs."

If this were true, you would imagine Trainer's colleague Sue Meiners might have mentioned it on Monday. Having lived and worked in Newham for over two decades, I'd add that if this were true, it has been applied so inconsistently over the years that it's likely to cause as much confusion as Coe's own pronouncements on 'branded t-shirts'. Instead, what it looks suspiciously like is a really poor excuse, one targeted specifically at volunteers who have given up their spare time to provide an important service to local communities.

In its public response to the council, Newham Monitoring Project says:

There has been much debate about the rules used to protect corporate brands during the Olympics and we are genuinely surprised that the council would adopt and enforce similar rules against its own citizens, especially those who are volunteering for a local not-for-profit group with charitable aims.

Quite so. We can add this to the growing list of unlikely Olympic legacies: Newham council borrowing from LOCOG to oppressively protect a brand - its own - in local public spaces.

Newham Council Bans Legal Observers From Stratford Park

Photo: Simon Shaw

It may come as little surprise to many that Newham council looks upon local people with deep suspicion, but with the huge Olympic policing and security operation now under way in Stratford, its decisions are quickly becoming a microcosm of the excesses that many predicted. Not only are council security guards searching people hoping to watch Games events at open-air screenings, but now the borough's officers have placed a ban on legal observers handing out civil rights information in public parks.

The council's "Newham Live" events take place in Central Park and Stratford Park, offering the chance, the council says, "to watch all the live action from the Olympic and Paralympic Games on two giant screens". It claims that "all events are free and open entry" but those attending are searched before they enter and there have been complaints this weekend that there are no female security staff at Stratford Park. Notices outside also say that by entering the park, the public agree to be photographed, ostensibly for Newham council's publicity but implying the  systematic recording of all those who are attending. Then today, Newham Monitoring Project (NMP) reported that its volunteer Community Legal Observers were banned from entering Stratford Park because the community group's stop and search rights cards are "making it easy for criminals and giving them tips".

The idea that providing people with information about their rights is in any way a threat to public order or likely to cause criminality is, of course, utterly ludicrous. It is also deeply insulting to local people, whom the council's security evidently look upon with immense distrust, a crowd ready to explode if it discovers that there is no need to provide their names and addresses if they are stopped by the police.

It seems that even the council recognises how ludicrous this is. After NMP made a complaint,  the council's Sue Meiners, Head of Events & Sponsorship, Communications Team Policy, Partnerships & Communications (what a job title!) fell back on the catch-all excuse for banning things: anti-social behaviour. She claimed that the rights cards were causing "litter". Bearing in mind that NMP has very limited funds for its work during the Olympics and its volunteers have been asked to hand out rights cards sparingly to those who actually want them, this seems very unlikely. But when NMP's Community Legal Observers generously offered to stop handing out any further cards, they were still asked to leave the park.

There are legitimate reasons for monitoring the police this summer and the role of legal observers is simply to record what they see, not to intervene. One of NMP's aims is that the very presence of legal observers and the scrutiny they provide may help to moderate potentially excessive policing. People who are prepared to give up their spare time in defence of civil liberties should be applauded for their public-spiritedness - dare I say it, their 'resilience' - not barred from entering a public space by Newham's security guards.

The council has yet to respond to the complaint it has received.from NMP. If it wants to avoid the 'Olympic brand' of the council that tried to ban civil rights protection during this summer's Games, it needs to overturn this mean-spirited decision and let NMP's volunteers get on with their important work.

To find out more about Newham Monitoring Project's Community Legal Observer programme, click here.

Policing and Protest Stories During The Olympics

In an attempt to try and keep on top of what may be a very busy period from today until the end of the Olympics, I have set up two Storify timelines - one on policing during the Olympics and one on Olympics protests.

If anyone has any suggestions for items to include in either timeline, please e-mail me or contact me on Twitter at @copwatcher.

NMP Launches Olympics Community Legal Observers

This evening, some of the 100+ volunteers who will patrol during this summer's Olympics as Community Legal Observers (CLOs) met up at Theatre Square in Stratford for a photo-call to launch the initiative, organised by Newham Monitoring Project. They also distributed NMP's new stop & search rights cards outside Stratford station, which received an incredibly positive response from the public: people asked for copies to give to their friends.

Teams of CLOs will be out on the streets in their distinctive red bibs from tomorrow, gathering evidence of the misuse of police powers and providing legal rights information in both the north and south of the borough throughout the next six weeks. Here are a few photos from this evening - inevitably, there are more available on Flickr.

New Report Highlights Clampdown On Protest Freedoms

In the piece I wrote on Monday reflecting on the verdict in the trial of PC Harwood, I mentioned the imminent publication of new research by the Network for Police Monitoring, which provides evidence of how the 'window of opportunity' for change after the G20 protests in 2009 has closed remarkably quickly. That report has now been published and is available from here [PDF, 10.2 Mb].

The report, funded by the Andrew Wainwright Reform Trust, covers a fourteen month period from late 2010 to the end of 2011, beginning with mass student protests in London that grabbed the headlines and left lawyers grappling with the legality of holding school-age children using the tactic of containment known as ‘kettling’ for hours on end in freezing conditions.

However, many other protests took place in London and around the country during 2011, many of them raising additional concerns about the proportionality of protest policing. As well as kettling, NetPol's reserach documents the use of solid steel barriers to restrict the movement of protesters; intrusive and excessive use of stop & search and data gathering; and the pre-emptive arrests of people who have committed no crime. These tactics have combined to enable an effective clamp-down on almost all forms of popular street-level dissent.

One of the most disturbing developments has been the use of pre-emptive arrests in advance of last year's royal wedding, which only last week was ruled lawful after an unsuccessful judicial review at the Royal Courts of Justice. Ten people on their way to a republican party and a small group of people dressed as zombies were detained while drinking coffee in Starbucks. At the same time, another man was arrested, simply because he was a ‘known anarchist’.There is more information on these cases on the Pageantry and Pre-Crime website.

The report also highlights the use of ‘section 60’ stop and searches, which require no ‘reasonable suspicion’ and have been disproportionately targeted at young people taking part in protests. In some cases under eighteen year olds have been threatened with being taken into ‘police protection’ if they participated in demonstrations. NetPol is also critical of the invasive but routine use of police data gathering tactics, which oblige protesters to stand and pose in front of police camera teams and to provide their personal details. Evidence suggests an increasing misuse of anti-social behaviour legislation to force protesters to provide a name and address under threat of arrest.

Val Swain, commenting on the report’s launch on behalf of NetPol, said:

“The evidence we have gathered has been published just as news emerges of further pre-emptive arrests and other restrictions on the freedom to protest taking place in advance of this summer’s London Olympics. With an apparent willingness by the courts to defend any actions by the police against protesters, we fear that dissenting voices face an even harsher clamp-down in the weeks to come.”

Bosnians Call For Renaming of ArcelorMittal Orbit As 'Omarska Memorial in Exile'

At a press conference this afternoon, which I was fortunate enough to attend, survivors of a Bosnian concentration camp called for the renaming of the ArcelorMittal Orbit – the Olympic Park's twisted Meccano structure, sometimes known as The Tower of Piffle – as a 'memorial in exile' to Bosniaks and Croats from Prijedor who suffered and died at the camp at the Omarska mining complex.

Omarska was one of many camps set up in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina by Bosnian Serb forces, in an area that the Dayton Agreement later declared as part of Republika Srpska (the details of this Agreement I know very well: it was the subject of my Masters thesis). During the spring and summer of 1992, approximately 3334 non-Serb inmates were held in appalling and brutal conditions, tortured and killed. In the region, 2916 men, 262 women and 11 children are still missing. In early August 1992, reporters Ed Vulliamy, Ian Williams and ITN's Penny Marshall (shaking hands, above, with Bosnian Muslim prisoner Fikret Alic at the Trnopolje concentration camp) gained access to Omarska and their coverage helped to force the United Nations to investigate war crimes committed in the conflict. Following international condemnation, the camp was closed less than a month later.

In 2004, the complex was taken over by the India steel conglomerate ArcelorMittal and the resumption of mining operations halted exhumations of mass graves by forensic investigators, who had unearthed hundreds of remains of war crimes victims from mass grave sites in the area. On 1 December 2005, the company announced at a press conference in Banja Luka that it would build and finance a Memorial Centre at the site. However, in the seven years that have followed, ArcelorMittal has failed to deliver that promise. In February 2006 it said that it is ‘temporarily suspending’ the Omarska memorial project and until May 2011, war crimes victims were denied access to the site – restrictions that returned in 2012. In a press release in May this year, the company appeared to relent on access but added that “the question of a memorial needs to be decided in consensus with all parties” and that it is “not taking sides in this debate”. Such consensus in the face of genocide seems impossible when the current Mayor of Prijedor, Marko Pavic, says any memorial in Omarska would undermine relations between different ethnic groups and continues to deny that the camp was anything other than an "investigation centre."

A year ago ArcelorMittal proudly announced that the 2200 tonnes of steel used in the construction of the Orbit would contain “symbolic quantities from every continent in the world where the Company has operations, reflecting the spirit of the Olympic Games”. Strangely, its operation in Bosnia-Herzegovina was completely missing from its press release. However, in April this year the Director of ArcelorMittal Prijedor, Mladen Jelača, confirmed to Professor Eyal Weizman of Goldsmiths, University of London and artist Milica Tomic of the Monument Group, Belgrade, that iron ore mined at Omarska had been used in the Obrit's fabrication.

For this reason, the war crimes survivors who spoke movingly at today's press conference – Satko Mujagic, Rezak Hukanovic and Kemal Pervanic – argue that in the absence of their promised memorial, London’s ArcelorMittal Orbit is tragically intertwined with the history of war crimes in Bosnia, as the bones of more victims are mixed in with the iron ore. It must therefore be reclaimed: no longer called the Orbit but the 'Omarska Memorial in Exile'.

Susan Schuppli of Goldsmiths Centre for Research Architecture said at today's event:

As the largest steel producer in the world, ArcelorMittal can surely use their considerable influence to overturn the local politics of denial and actively participate in healing the fractured communities out of which their very fortunes are generated. Yet they insist on not taking sides. Not taking sides in an area where persecution and injustice continue – is not neutrality but taking a political position by default.

By doing to, ArcelorMittal is colluding in the covering up of war crimes. As an Indian multi-national (albeit one registered in Luxembourg) and one of the emerging global capitalist players, the company has attracted less criticism than many of its Western counterparts, despite accusations that it created a "state within a state" in Liberia and condemnation of its environmental record. However, those who spoke today described the public art it has sponsored in the Olympic Park this summer as “a monument of shame, not a monument to the Olympic spirit”. They continue to call on ArcelorMittal to preserve structures like the infamous 'White House' (below), where detainees received particularly savage treatment at the mining complex, and to resume its memorial project at Omarska. Until then, the Orbit will remain a 'memorial in exile', the only public commemoration to the people from Prijedor who died in the worst genocide in Europe since 1945.

The infamous 'White House' at Omarska

For more information on today's campaign launch, see A Memorial in Exile