Dear all,
The following message may be interesting to some list members.
Best wishes,
ricard
>>>>
The activist group "Reclaim the City" arranged a Street Party on the island
of Södermalm in central Stockholm on the evening of Saturday the 18th of
September 1999. Despite early police threats to "stop the demonstration",
the mild weather and the steady beat of steel drums lifted the spirits of
the circa 500 party-goers, anarchists, punks and ravers.
Gathering first at a central square, the group then made their way to the
crown of a steep, nearby street that is lined with pubs and cafés. At the top of
the hill, the street was blocked-off with colourful banners and oil drums
filled with burning wood. A truck with a powerful sound-system then began
pumping out music that echoed in the narrow street and could be heard a
good distance down both ends of the hill - drawing would be part-goers
towards it. Activists decorated the walls with banners with political messages
while others began to paint colourful designs and slogans on the street
itself.
As the party progressed, more and more people, on their way out to one of the
many pubs in the area, joined in on the fun. The party was a success and
spirits were high and nearly 700 people were dancing at the highpoint of the
party. However, activists and pub-goers were not the only ones to be drawn
towards the vibrating sound system. During the one and a half hours that the
party progressed more and more police arrived in the area and the crowd
diminished in size. The police first began to cordon-off the immediately
surrounding streets and then began to refuse people entrance into the area.
They then began to stop people from leaving from the area. Then they
attacked.
Moving quickly in from both sides, rows of riot police supported by mounted
police and riot vans, quickly shocked their way forward to the sound system
and turned of the music. Not to be discouraged, the people continued to
dance to the sounds of the steel drums and generally kept their spirits up
and people laughed-off the provocation. After all, they we're only dancing
in the streets.
They police however, did not take the situation as lightly. Despite the
obvious non-violent atmosphere and good humour, the party-goers were during
the next three hours exposed to both physiological and physical abuse from
the police. And with out any thoughts of the need of self-defence, the
people were forced to endure the onslaught.
During the first hour, four bus loads of people, circa 150 individuals, were
driven from the scene after being roughly and thoroughly searched. As the
busses did not return for more, it was generally thought that they we taken
out to some distant suburb and dropped off, being stranded and thereby forced to
find their own way back into the city. This is a normal police tactic in such
situations. However, this was not the case. The first bus load was simply
dropped off on the other side of the island of Södermalm. The remaining circa
300 participants were now made to endure a sick, two-hour power trip from the
side of the police.
The crowd was continually pressed closer and closer together after repeated
baton-shocks from the police. In each incident of the shock attacks, people
were beaten and injured and many dragged from the scene by their feet and
abused within sight of the rest of the crowd. These baton attacks were
unprovoked. The police rotated their attacks with ten or fifteen, or
sometimes twenty minute pauses, adding to the sense of insecurity, before
suddenly performing another baton-shock. As the crowd became increasingly
thirsty, tired and agitated, the situation became more stressful. The
police simply became more and more aggressive and unpredictable.
After one and a half hours of such treatment, 8 mounted police charged the
crowd, trampling people and dividing them into two groups. At this point,
people were pressed against the walls of the aligning buildings, like so many
sardines in a can. One of the groups was then baton-attacked. Then the other
group was simply set free and told to vacate the area. The remaining group
was then attacked several more times before also being suddenly set free and told
to leave. The over one hundred police involved in the operation then quickly
disappeared from the vicinity as well.
Several things are worth noting. First, many of the police involved in this
operation had earlier in the day been assigned to patrol a football match. So
when the party-goers were finally released after their ordeal, the timing
coincided exactly with the end of their "working day". Secondly, none of the
police wore helmets with identification numbers upon them, something that is
required by Swedish law. Thirdly, several of the riot police wore facemasks,
something which further hindered identification or photographing and is
against
Swedish law. Fourthly, as the first bus loads of "arrested" participants were
only taken a short distance from the scene and the buses still did not return
for more, it must be assumed that the police never had the intention of
removing all the people from the area. The motive was more likely simply that
of reducing the number of individuals involved to a predetermined acceptable
ratio of police/"demonstrators". Fifth, this type of street party has been
proven to be a counter-cultural bridge between extra-parliamentary political
activists and disenfranchised youth in other Nordic countries such as Finland
and Norway. By acting in this manner towards young party-goers, police may
have
hoped to severely hinder such a development here in Stockholm. They are most
certainly mistaken as the general consensus amongst the people involved can
be summed up in the following words:
NO JUSTICE; NO PEACE
FUCK DA POLICE
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