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.

NMP Olympics Policing Report Highlights Reality of Stop & Search

This morning, Newham Monitoring Project published a report setting out  how it deployed close to a hundred 'community legal observers' (CLOs) during last summer's Olympics and how the experiences of these volunteers can help other organisations, both in the UK and abroad, to consider using a similar community legal observation model in the future. You can download a copy here.

I contributed to writing the report and recommend reading the daily 'timeline' appendix summarising some of the feedback from CLOs who were out on the streets. Amongst the stories is one incident, similar to so many others we heard repeatedly during the Olympics, that involved a young Asian man who chose to assert his rights when he was stopped and searched in Stratford. It illustrates how, even when someone is confident and knowledgeable about their rights, this is not enough to prevent a frustrating and intimidating encounter with the police:

While waiting for my partner at Stratford station, I was approached by three officers yelling 'take your hands out of your pockets'. As they gathered around me, I asked what they wanted and was told they had planned to just ask me some questions but because I was being ‘aggressive’ and ‘anti-police’ they were now going to carry out a stop and search.

One officer began the search without any explanation, so I asked why they were failing to follow ‘GOWISELY’ (an acronym used in police training as a reminder of information officers must provide when they perform a stop and search1). The officer was very unhappy I asked this and after consulting his colleagues, he said I was suspected of placing drugs in my socks. Officers were very rude as they then began the search and asked many questions, which I chose not to answer. They also threatened me with arrest when I refused to provide my name and address.

My partner arrived as the search was almost completed. As I explained what had happened, one of the officers called out to her: 'does he lie like this to you all the time?' They then said I was free to leave but I reminded them that they had forgotten to offer me a record of the search and I wanted one. The officers kept insisting to my partner 'he is free to go, he is a free man' but she politely said, 'I think he wants his receipt, even if we’re late'. One of the officers then filled in a search record and handed it to me, which said I had been seen pulling up my socks and had appeared agitated around a sniffer dog – which hadn't even arrived until after the search had begun. I immediately challenged the search record and said it was false. One officer again told my partner that I was a liar and walked away to write up his notes. Luckily I had paper and a pen with me and was able to note the officers' badge numbers. I am now pursuing a formal complaint.

What makes this young man different from many of his peers is that he happens to be a caseworker for Newham Monitoring Project and somebody who provides advice and training on police stop and search powers. He also has a law degree, but all the officers saw was a someone young and black, which was enough to make him a suspect.

As NMP's report notes, "It is hardly surprising that, in similar circumstances, someone who is far less confident about their rights would find those rights are ignored". And in this is the basis for everything we have argued about why the police are still not trusted by young people.

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:

Scar On Wanstead Flats As Olympic Fortress Departs

I was away over the weekend in Warwickshire: Saturday would have been the 42nd birthday my old friend Gilly Mundy, who passed away in 2007, so I went to spend time with his family. I therefore missed the removal of the Great Wall that surrounded Fortress Wanstead Flats, the Olympic police base that has been so bitterly opposed by local people (more from me on Wanstead Flats here)

So this evening, I popped over to take a look and to photograph the impact of the base on a much loved piece of public land. Sadly, as predicted, the destruction is huge - it may take months to recover and parts of the site are covered by gravel and hardstanding.

The dark scar on previously protected open land is a real test for the City of London Corporation, who are the nominal 'custodians' of Wanstead Flats as part of Epping Forest. Failing to completely restore the Flats to its condition before the base was constructed will undoubtedly fuel concerns - ones I share - that the site has been earmarked for future use as a "temporary" security space. With the Evening Standard reporting today that it may cost as much as £160 million to turn the Olympic stadium into a football arena, the worry is that the stadium will become the venue for more high-profile, high security events in order to recoup some of its vast costs. High security means a 'convenient' space for basing security operations - convenient for the police and the security industry that is, not for local people.

Here are a few photos of the sheer scale of the destruction - you can find more on Flickr.

Alternative Olympianism

This is my book review for Red pepper magazine of Mark Perryman's Why The Olympics Aren’t Good For Us, And How They Can Be. It appears in the current issue and online here

In Why The Olympics Aren’t Good For Us, And How They Can Be, Mark Perryman offers a timely reminder that sport and politics are always intertwined, and this has been just as true of the Olympics as other major sporting events. He argues, however, that a significant change began in 1984 in Los Angeles, as sponsorship and product placement started to gain greater prominence. By the time of the 1996 Games in Atlanta – the home of Coca Cola – global corporate interests had completed their takeover and aligned the proprieties of the International Olympic Committee to their own.

The book, a collection of short essays, goes on to explain how little evidence there is for the alleged benefits – everything from tourism and jobs to regeneration and increased participation in sport – of becoming a Host City. In unpicking the fallacies that demolish ‘the entire promise of the Olympics as something socially benevolent’, it provides a helpful summary of arguments familiar to critics of this summer’s Games.

What I find less convincing is the idea that this critique provides the basis for an ‘alternative Olympianism’. Perryman offers ‘Five New Olympic Rings’ to reform the Games. These include decentralising the hosting from cities to nations, and making individual events more open and more of them free-to-watch. The fifth of the new principles is the disconnection of the Games from corporate interests. Perryman is right to argue that the commercialisation of sport is not irresistible, but I see little evidence of a groundswell of grassroots opposition in defence of a genuine ‘Olympic spirit’.

More than other events, the Olympics historically has been the plaything of a tight, mainly European clique, an almost arbitrary gathering together of different, largely minority sports. Perryman’s ideas would undoubtedly make a positive impact on the nature of the Olympics as a participatory event. But he seems unclear where the pressure for change, pressure strong enough to topple the powerful commercial interests that control the IOC, might actually come from.

Nonetheless the book is an enjoyable polemic – and after a summer of relentless hyperbole about the London Olympics, it will come as a welcome relief to many Red Pepper readers.

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.

Mission Improbable - Photographing The Olympic Park

Over the next few weeks, there will be tens of thousands of photographs taken inside the Olympic Park, so there will be nothing remarkable about mine. Nevertheless, I bought a day pass to the park some months ago and wanted to take a look at the architecture, half-glimpsed over the last year as the construction carried on behind the high security fences (see results on Flickr). I also wanted to see what had happened to the River Lea, which I used to cycle by before construction on the site started.

So in spite of a longstanding scepticism about the Olympics dating back to 2004, this morning I headed over to Stratford and, following the advice of a friend who is an Olympic volunteer, I made my way into the secure zone via the Greenway entrance on Stratford High Street. She had been right: there was no queues and I pass through screening, carried out by soldiers drafted in as replacements for G4S, in under ten minutes.

Inside, the park was very much as expected, although little of the River Lea that I remember was familiar (see photos from today). Prominent reminders of the corporate sponsors were everywhere, with exuberant Coca Cola staff adopting a particularly American style of true-believer perkiness. There were more volunteers, the Games Makers, than was probably necessary at this stage (although the park will become busier when the athletics starts next Friday), armed police (right) on patrol and very few G4S staff. I think I spotted two all day.This being the 'Khaki Games', there was also a very significant military presence.

Mercifully, 'attractions' provided by the likes of BP seemed unappealing to the majority of visitors but queues for the London 2012 Megastore and the world's largest branch of McDonalds were long. It is clear that, like other modern mega-venues, the park is designed to encourage people to shop as much as enjoy the events. I'm glad I took advice, however, to bring in an empty water bottle (a full one won't pass security) and my own food, as everything is incredibly expensive.

Around one, the ominous black clouds over the stadium turned into a thunderstorm and it absolutely chucked it down. For some reason, the park's designers have offered little (non-retail) shelter in the event of rain in a British summer,  which meant that people had to improvise. Hundreds huddled under the bridges crossing the River Lea, an example of crowd behaviour that I don't think the planners ever expected. It was so packed (see below) that, had the park been busier, I can imagine someone tumbling off the river bank.

At around 3pm, by now thoroughly exhausted, I finally met up with my friend at the end of her shift and was able to fulfil the arrangement we'd made beforehand. It was a proud moment (below) as I became the first person to be photographed inside the Olympic Park wearing one of the Space Hijackers' Official Protester™ t-shirts. I guess this explains the extremely cheesy grin - but I also guess it may now be more difficult gaining entry in the future... One for the National Domestic Extremism Unit database I suspect.

Yesterday's Counter Olympics Protest

This morning I'm off to the Olympic Park to take a look around, meet up with a friend who is an Official Olympic™ Games™ Maker™ and maybe take a few photos. This time I may think about sun screen: I'm still recovering form yesterday's small (at most 700 people) but vocal Counter Olympic Network march in Tower Hamlets.

Unlike the massive over-reaction by the police towards Friday evening's Critical Mass cycle ride - which resulted in 182 arrests - yesterday saw on only one incident, a pointless use of police powers that led to a rapid de-arrest as the crowd gathered around and refused to move on. This reflects the relaxed party atmosphere of what inevitably was a largely symbolic expression of opposition to the corporate nature of the Games, one that attracted little UK media coverage. Here a few photos - there are more on Flickr.

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.

Boris Johnson's Olympic Welcome

This really should be screened in every park in Newham over the summer - Cassetteboy bring us fluff-headed loon Boris Johnson welcoming the world to the London Olympics.

Inside Fortress Wanstead Flats

It has been a particularly fraight week, part of it spent in a witness room with the Tomlinson family at Southwark Crown Court, awaiting the verdict of the trial of Metropolitan Police constable Simon Harwood for the manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson. I still haven't managed to find the words to describe the extent of my anger and disgust at his acquittal - or what impact I believe the decision is likely to have on the future policing of protest - but I plan to try and write something over the weekend.

Meanwhile, today was the rather poorly-publicised 'public open day' for Fortress Wanstead Flats, which I ventured into with some friends and some trepidation this morning. This was the one opportunity to see inside the Olympics operations base that local people have campaigned so vociferously against and fortunately, there were none of the expected restrictions on photography. What we had confirmed is that up to 3500 police will use the base over the busiest days of the Games and what we discovered was that vehicles will leave via the entrance on the busy Centre Road - effectively cutting off another way out of Newham. Here are a few of my photos: as ever, there are more to be found on Flickr.

Alternative Torch Relay Arrives At Wanstead Flats This Saturday

As part of the build-up to the ‘Whose Games? Whose City?’ protest against the Corporate Olympics taking place on 28 July, this Saturday sees a team of runners from the Counter Olympics Network carrying the Vancouver Poverty Olympics Torch on an alternative torch relay from Stratford, through Leytonstone and finishing at the Metropolitan Police's newly constructed Olympic operations base on Wanstead Flats.

Leaving at 2pm, runners plan to arrive just as a 'public open day' at the base, starting at 11am and aimed at placating some of the intense opposition by local residents to its construction, closes its eleven-foot high gates at 3pm. A further leg of the relay takes place on Friday 27 July, leaving Clissold Park in Hackney and travelling to the unsightly basketball training facility at Leyton Marsh. The Save Leyton Marsh campaign will hold a welcome party for the torch.

The Poverty Olympics Torch was handed over to London at a ceremony at the Olympic Cauldron in Jack Poole Plaza, Vancouver in 2010, visited Glasgow in March 2012 and was received by the Counter Olympics Network at the Bishopsgate Institute in April 2012.

Julian Cheyne of the Counter Olympics Network said in a press release:

“This is a milestone in Olympic protest – the first time, to our knowledge, that a protest torch has been handed from one host city to another. We hope this will be a feature of protest in future host cities.”

Olympic Organisers Try to Ban Derogatory Linking To Its Crappy Website

There have been many times over the last year when the BBC award-winning comedy "Twenty Twelve", a mockumentary about the organisation of this summer's Olympics, has seemed closer to reality than the writers can ever have expected. But the latest nonsense, highlighted by Index on Censorship, seems just like the work of Jessica Hynes' brilliant character, Head of Brand Siobhan Sharpe (see above). In an apparent failure to understand anything about either the Internet or freedom of expression, LOCOG has included the following clause in its website's terms of use:

Links to the Site. You may create your own link to the Site, provided that your link is in a text-only format. You may not use any link to the Site as a method of creating an unauthorised association between an organisation, business, goods or services and London 2012, and agree that no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner. [my emphasis] The use of our logo or any other Olympic or London 2012 Mark(s) as a link to the Site is not permitted. View our guidelines on Use of the Games’ Marks.

What this means is that, according to the London organisers, I cannot use their web address in a link to the gathering of staggering control-freakery, deranged sponsor-driven boosterism and tacky souvenirs that passes for their principal web presence.

You see what I did there? Well, it's just an opinion. It's a free country, allegedly. Now consider this: how on earth can LOCOG possibly police the expression of personal opinions on hundreds of blogs and websites? Am I to expect a solicitor's letter over the next week, or are the London organisers likely to find that they're too busy trying to fix the monumental cock-up that global security company G4S has dropped in their lap?

Counter Olympics Protestors To Defy Demo Ban on 28 July

I was unable to attend the Counter Olympics Network activists meeting on Wednesday due to work commitments, but I'm told it was packed and agreed that the march on Saturday 28 July, in protest at the corporate takeover of the Games, will “defy an attempt by Transport for London to ban the demo”.

The planned march in two week's time will assemble at Mile End Park at noon and end with a ‘People’s Games for All’ rally and festival at Wennington Green, near Victoria Park. However, when organisers met representatives of the Metropolitan police, Tower Hamlets council and Transport for London (TfL) on 9 July, TfL said it would not sanction a march along Bow Road, claiming it is part of the ‘Alternative Olympic Route Network’ (AORN). This is an alternative route for use during the Games period if the main Olympic Route Network (ORN) should become blocked for any reason.

Counter Olympics Network (CON) spokesperson Julian Cheyne has said:

“The ORN will be used exclusively by the IOC, Olympic officials, sponsors, media, and athletes. Even ambulances are barred. The IOC are getting luxury accommodation in the West End and will ride around in chauffeur-driven BMWs at public expense. They will have priority over all other road users.

Everyone else will be herded onto congested roads and overloaded public transport. The ORN will be a 35-mile ribbon of class privilege running across London for the duration of the Games. It will cause six weeks of blocked roads, traffic congestion, and closed bus routes, cycle lanes, and pedestrian crossings.

But the AORN isn’t even part of this. It will only come into operation if the ORN suffers some kind of breakdown. The idea that you ban free speech and shut down democracy to ensure that the rich have an alternative priority highway is an outrage."

There has been considerable speculation about the prospects for protest during the Olympics and what obstacles the state might impose if protest organisers decided to engage in negotiations. The Counter Olympics Network appears to have gone out of its way to accommodate the authorities by giving early notice of the intention to march, avoiding both the ORN network and the immediate vicinity of the Olympic Park and agreeing to use the parks proposed by the local council. Quite frankly, the fact that the largest protest against the Olympics is barred from anywhere near Stratford is already an enormous concession.

It is therefore understandable that CON spokesperson Albert Beale has confirmed that marchers will defy restrictions and has said:

“We won’t be denied our right to protest, so we will be marching down Bow Road and if we are restricted to the pavement, the stupidity of the resulting congestion and delay will be the responsibility of Transport for London”.

There is an obvious conclusion that others may draw from the experience that CON have been through: perhaps it is better avoid negotiations completely, as they are obviously designed to severely restrict the right to freedom of speech and assembly and banish any protest to the margins. This fits in completely with the state's desire for a sterile, controlled, “Perfect Games”. No wonder so few people have offered to meet with Metropolitan police assistant commissioner and national Olympic security co-ordinator, Chris Allison.

In these circumstances, I hope the march on 28 July involves a massive turnout, as the number of people attending will influence events on the ground. But it also seems that the case for affinity-group, DIY protest that may make an even greater impact has just received a tremendous boost.

Who Is The Tow Path Spotter?

PHOTO: Diamond Geezer

On Saturday, around fifty users of the Lea towpath from Homerton to Bow braved the terrible weather to hold a protest and picnic at the point where the path along the canal near Eastway has been fenced off as a so-called “security” measure for the Olympics. Both police and soldiers in uniform were enforcing the towpath access restriction on Saturday, This was 23 days before the Games even begins and closure has s forced cyclists onto busy roads and denied local residents access to recreational space

It was a good-natured demonstration, as this report makes clear, but on the arrival of the protesters, the soldiers hurried for cover under their orange tarp. Then, as people were leaving, this bloke (right) on a police-style mountain bike was spotted on his radio and moments later, the soldiers were back out and chatting to the line of police.

So who is the Towpath Spotter? And what on earth were the fearless security so worried about?

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