Fitwatchers brutalised by cops using unnecessarily violent restraint procedures
… and lying about it!
21st June ‘09 and the Guardian reports on the arrest of Fitwatchers at last year’s Climate Camp at Kingsnorth in Kent after they had questioned the police about failure to display badge numbers.
Both Swain and Apple were pinned to the ground in restraint positions for around 15 minutes. Apple had her head pushed into the ground by an officer without a badge number. Moments later, the same officer placed one hand around her neck in a stranglehold position, apparently attempting to show her face to the police camera.
He then pressed his fingers on pressure points in her neck to move her across the road.
Several metres away, Swain was also being pinned to the ground. The footage captured her groaning in pain and telling an officer to stop standing on her foot. The camera panned down to show the officer’s boot clamped on top of Swain’s foot. The officer said: “I am not on your foot.”
The report continues..
Later, the footage captured Swain complaining about her treatment. “You have no right to grab someone from inside the climate camp, drag them out here, and tell them that you are arresting them for obstruction,” she said.
Read the full article on The Guardian website.
An afterthought…
Perhaps one of the positive aspects of this (in a perverse sort of way) is that for the cops to resort to such actions against fitwatchers surely indicates that fitwatching has become an effective tactic that the cops really don’t like. Tough!
