The arrest of Critical Mass cyclists shows the extremes to which low-tolerance policing can go – during the Games and beyond
By Wail Qasim, published Monday 30 July 2021 11.15 BST, here.
An officer grapples with a cyclist after a Critical Mass protest outside the Olympic park
“People have a right to protest and it is an incredibly important part of our democracy,” said the Metropolitan police in their customary fashion after they arrested 182 people on the Critical Mass cycle ride during the Olympic opening ceremony. But – there is always a “but” here – we are asked to understand they had to balance this right with other people’s “rights to go about their business”. This appeal to the rights of a fictitious group of people that the police perceive to be in danger, in this case from a group of cyclists, is used to derogate the rights they otherwise claim to afford to protesters. It is not uncommon, but still troubling.
However, the disturbing mass arrest of cyclists on Friday should not be seen as an isolated over-the-top reaction from the police. It is the latest low point of an attitude that demonstrates extremely low tolerance for dissent leading up to the London 2012 Games.
As early as April this year we saw the first “Olympic asbo” handed out, which prevented Simon Moore, arrested for protesting against the construction of basketball facilities on Leyton Marsh, from “approaching any Olympic venue, activity or official”. The conditions of this order would soon become the model for bail conditions given to many protesters arrested in the months leading up to the Games, at times even including those with no link to anti-Olympics protesting, such as a number of ex-graffiti artists.
The true role of these draconian bail conditions that heavily impact on people’s lives while they wait months before being brought before the courts or are even charged seems twofold: a vexatious extra-judicial punishment from the police and an easy means by which they can criminalise the most low-level dissent towards the Games. We need only look to the fact 182 people, most without charge, are now added to those banned from going anywhere near the Olympics.
This exertion of control over people’s lives in order to prevent protest against or near the Olympics extends beyond conditions police can impose through bail or asbos. The weekend before the Games officially commenced saw residents on the Carpenters estate in Newham hold a “gentrification tour” of the area to raise awareness of plans to regenerate the estate through a possible deal between Newham council and University College London. Yet as the tour attempted to access the residents’ premises it found itself prevented from doing so by BBC security and police officers, as the broadcaster uses the top five floors of the tower for Olympics coverage. It seems that mere proximity to the Olympic site renders protest liable to inhibitive policing, even if you are trying to access your own home.
Farcical and dystopian acts like the arrest of six people for spilling custard during street theatre often prompt observations that events like the Olympics present a “state of exception” – where standard rights are derogated in order to facilitate a spectacle. But the Italian theorist Giorgio Agamben, who is best known for discussing the issue, should not be misunderstood. This is a state of exception, but far from being a period outside the norm where standard rights do not apply, it presents a chance for a lack of rights to be properly inaugurated into the law once the exception, the Olympics, is over.
It is clear that where the exception is most vividly experienced is through contact with the police who appear as sovereign; no number of judicial reviews can restore liberty taken away by them after all. In claiming to balance a “right to protest” against others’ “rights to go about their business” their well-practised line serves merely to hide that they in fact manage our lives in such a way as to make dissent as invisible and unattractive as possible, during the Olympics and beyond.
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Ed Greens, arrested protester on Critical Mass cycle ride is now speaking at our forum on thursday 2nd August, 7pm: “policing on trial: how do we get justice?”. For more information see here and the facebook event.
This footage shows a woman trying to offer Ed water to break his fast, after police refused Ed access to his own food and water:
See also ‘8 quick notes on CRITICAL MASS & POLICING’ here.
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