You don’t often see videos here, but after lunching with a friend today in Westminster, I witnessed the police arresting a demonstrator on College Green – and I thought I might as well share with you what I saw. Apologies for the awful quality of video taken on my phone, and for the camerawork.

I’d just walked past College Green as a man stood on a soap-box and unfurled a banner showing the word “Nukiller”; he started to speak, saying he was going to say something about nuclear power or nuclear weapons (I can’t remember which, which may prove I’m a bad witness, or a bad citizen, or both).

What caught my interest was that, as  I passed a group of three policemen looking on, I heard one of them say “… unlawful demonstration …” whereupon I took a few photographs. One of the policemen began to talk to the demonstrator for a few minutes; the demonstrator seemed to ignore him, while the other policemen posed with tourists for photographs. But after a few minutes the first policeman consulted with his colleagues, and the three of them went over to speak to the man again, and arrest him – presumably on suspicion of the offence of demonstrating without authorisation in a designated area under section 132(1)(c) of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which is still law.

It’s the man on the grass on the right who is arrested, the one holding a white card or banner; not the one on the left with a blue and red board, who seemed to be with him.

As the demonstrator was being taken away, you can hear him protesting that “this is a false arrest” and citing article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression. At 1’38” he also says “I am now being tortured by the police”. The policemen took him past me, and just as they went out of side, appeared to be handcuffing him – which is why I followed, losing them from shot for a moment or two. They then took him into the Palace of Westminster through the Sovereign’s entrance.

2010-04-14T15:28:14+00:00