Bush visits London a final time and civil liberties are thrown overboard

London. After having organised more than 20 national demonstrations Stop The War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the British Muslim Initiative called for a rally in Parliament Square (Westminster) to protest George W. Bush jr. visit to London, the UK and Europe on Sunday June 15, 2008.

 

After 5 years of war in Iraq and 6 years of war in Afghanistan Britain’s anti-war movement had shrunk to only 3000 protestors wanting to welcome the infamous international terrorist George W. Bush who was having tea with Gordon Brown in Downing Street 500 yards further. Before leaving office George W. Bush jr. took the opportunity to applaud Gordon Brown and the New Labour government on being ‘tough on terror’.

 

Anti-war protestors quickly realised that being tough on terror implied a violation of civil liberties as marching down Whitehall was impossible as police had built up security barriers and banned the march to take the route past Downing Street. The clashes between the Metropolitan police blockading the road into Whitehall and peaceful anti-war protestors displayed in how far the United States has interfered with civil liberties in Great Britain as well as around the world. George W. Bush’s Operation Enduring Freedom has ended freedom.

 

Extensive police brutality got 25 protestors arrested, and three people charged with offences - amongst them a 60-year old woman who was charged with indecent exposure. Essex student Pete Simpson said: “Police were hitting our hands with their truncheons. They were standing over us like bullies with their weapons. I was hit on my arm, shoulder and head. Blood was streaming down my face.”

 

In an open letter to Sir Ian Blair of the Metropolitan Police George Galloway MP compares the police brutality of Sunday to the crackdown on the miners’ strike of ‘84-‘85. “Batons were drawn at least prematurely and were used with a level of aggression which frankly took my breath away.” Before protestors knew it riot police was deployed even though there was not a riot going on. This provocation by the Metropolitan Police put the anti-war protestors into a situation known to dictatorships that Bush and New Labour supposedly have been fighting so hard against. In direct confrontation with a police force of roughly 1500 the protest dissolved as the police was snatching protestors seemingly at random. Galloway: “The squad proceeded to deal out a shocking level of violence against unarmed civilian protestors, overwhelmingly young and many of them female.”