British student left with brain injury after police attacks on fees protest

[Hannah Bell]

Alfie Meadows, 20, a student at Middlesex University, has suffered bleeding to the brain after being batoned by police during the December 9 tuition fees protest in London.

Meadows was hit on the head as he tried to leave the Westminster Abbey area after being “kettled” there by police along with thousands of others. Kettling refers to the police tactic of surrounding and penning in protesters in small areas for hours on end without access to food, drink or toilet facilities. It amounts to the forced imprisonment of demonstrators without due process...

“The surface wound wasn't very big, but three hours after the blow he suffered bleeding to the brain,” Meadows’ mother told the BBC. “Basically, he had a stroke last night. He couldn't speak or move his hand.”

Britain’s media yesterday issued an entirely predictable collective howl of outrage directed against the protesting students. Newspapers centred their wrath on an incident in which a few dozen protesters threw paint and broke the window of a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla.

The Daily Mirror spoke of “thugs” fighting “pitched battles with police.” The Telegraph wrote of 30,000 students having “laid siege to Parliament Square..." The aim of such slanted reportage is to conceal the fact, nearly tragically illustrated by the fate of Alfie Meadows, that the chief source of violence during the December 9 demonstration was the police.

The Guardian was one of the few mainstream news sources to even mildly question the police tactics, noting that demonstrators were still being kettled on Westminster Bridge as late as 11.30 pm, having been denied access to food, water and toilets for hours in freezing temperatures. It added, “The atmosphere for much of the afternoon had been relaxed and almost cheerful,” until news of the vote in favour of the fees hike (tripling of tuition) came in at 5:40 pm....

There are scores of eyewitness accounts and filmed evidence of police laying into peaceful protesters and charging at them with horses. The BBC cited the comments of one student, Mike, who explained how he was “forced up against a van by police—and struck repeatedly in the face… We were penned back against the other line of police, who were blocking us from the square. They crushed us into a tiny space, hundreds of us, tighter and tighter. It was painful.”

The aim, as with previous media-backed police provocations, is to criminalise protest—not just by students, but anyone seeking to oppose the austerity measures now being imposed.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/brit-d11.shtml


Thus the report from the right-wing daily mail that someone hit camilla in the ribs with a stick. Gotta justify this somehow.

[LinkUP]

1. Good to know

America's not the only place dems are bailing on basic liberal principals for sucess.

[stray cat]

2. The protest got violent - violence draws forth violence

[Starry Messenger]

3. recommend.