Category Archives: Bristol

Kill the bill protests set for cities and towns across UK this Easter

31st March 2021 Janet Powe

Kill the bill protests will taking place all over the country on Friday and Saturday, when there is a day of action.

The Tory Police and Crime Bill would give police the powers to shut down protests for making too much noise or causing ‘disruption’ – but all protests make noise and cause at least some disruption, after all that’s the whole point of protests.

In reality the Tories fear a long hot summer and so are getting tooled up, legally speaking, although they already have enough laws to orchestrate a clampdown on our democratic rights.

The BLM movement last summer and the Extinction Rebellion actions earlier really upset the Tories and this is the backlash from the right.

Fortunately for democracy in the UK, people have no intention of taking the imposition of this draconian legislation lying down and have been taking to the streets, from Newcastle to Bristol to Manchester.

It is not illegal to hold protests providing they are Covid safe, which means maintaining social distancing and mask wearing and use of sanitiser on hands and for wiping down equipment.

Jeremy Corbyn MP is slated to speak at the London protests according to information on social media.

**Update: Saturday’s London protest details latest – Meet 1pm** Speakers Corner Hyde Park – Jeremy Corbyn is now speaking

Kill the bill protests – check social media for details:

Tweets by Killthebill_UK

Tweets by killthebillLDN

blm_cardiff 🚨 PROTEST ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨

Nation Day of Action – defend your right to protest ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽

📍Bute Park, Cardiff
🗓Saturday 3rd April
⏰2PM

#killthebill #justiceformohamud #justiceformouayed

Bristol, news, UK

Bristol police are the thugs, solidarity with protesters who fought back

22nd March 2021 Janet Powe

The police went on the rampage in Bristol yesterday in a display of wanton violence that has been covered up by the media and politicians.

The thuggery on display last night was from the police who attacked peaceful protesters.

Now they are launching a hunt for as many as 500 people as they look to intimidate the youth of an entire city to stop future protests against the Tories’ proposed law to give police even more powers to curtail democratic rights.

Peaceful protesters were injured in their hundreds by police swinging batons indiscriminately, using dogs, pepper spray and cavalry.

People who marched to the police station sat down in the road – and then the police attacked.

Bristol police attack peaceful protesters

Chants rang out “Shame on you” as the police hit out.

One student who does not want to be named says she was punched in the face by a police officer.

The same student said she saw people being cornered and beaten by riot police and women abused with sexist language.

Yet all the media can think to do is parrot the lies of the police press releases.

Disgracefully, Bristol’s Labour mayor Marvin Rees joined in the lies and witch hunt, claiming that the protesters were showing their “privilege” and that the demo had nothing to do with political protest. He even tried to claim that it was all white people protesting and that they were making things worse for Black people!

But the protest was in fact called by Bristol BLM and Extinction Rebellion and other groups.

A warning for the Tories and their Orwellian media

Far from being unpolitical, it was a release of the pent up anger over the alleged murder of a Sarah Everard at the hands of a police officer, the attacked on a vigil of mourning women, the outrageous provisions of the police bill that puts more value on a statue than it does on a woman, the prosecution of movement heroes the Colston Four, who played a part in the righteous toppling of the statue to a slaveholder in the city, and of course it was ultimately a protest against a government whose deliberate and callous negligence has led to the death of 125,000 people, while at the same time enriching its friends in business with £37 billion wasted on an ineffective test and trace system.

Meanwhile young people have no jobs, pay exorbitant rents, hand over money for fees for a university education that is second rate and live on a planet that is dying.

The truth is we live in a corrupt country where the police are out of control.

We also live in a country of hypocrites that is quick to attack undemocratic practices abroad but has a blind spot when it comes to their own actions here at home.

It will take many more protests to reclaim our streets from the thugs in blue and the government that encourages them in their wanton violence.

The tories received a warning last night but they show no sign of heeding it – this is how states lose legitimacy. All power to the people!

Bristol, news, UK

Car attack in Bristol by violent racist minority trying to foment backlash

1st August 2020 Janet Powe

A health worker is lucky to be alive after racists deliberately drove their car into him.

The man has been left traumatised and is too scared to give his real name – but performs music under the name Kdogg.

Those who witnessed the attack said a dark blue Honda was involved and was driven directly at the NHS worker, who works at Southmead Hospital, Bristol.

The assailants jumped out of the car and hurled racist abuse at the victim.

He is now unable to climb stairs, and said he is traumatised by the attack.

Witnesses told police that a dark blue Honda Accord was deliberately driven at K before two men shouted racial abuse at him and then ran from the car.

The attack is being seen by many as part of a violent racist backlash against the black lives matter movement by frustrated racists and fascists.

Bristol was the site of the now famous incident in which an overwhelmingly white crowd estimated at 15,000 protesters, tore down the statute of slaver Edward Colston.

Kdogg is being supported by the charity Stand Against Racism & Inequality (Sari).

He told the media: “People came to help me off the wall I was on and I just remember bleeding.

“As I was helped off, I got laid on the floor and bandaged up.

“I want to thank the people who helped me because of how quickly they responded and how they rang the emergency services because, obviously, if it wasn’t for them I’m not sure if I would be here.”

There has been a spate of serious violent racist attacks over the past few days, for example in Bishop Stortford where there is a protest by anti-racists today (Saturday 1 August).

Bristol, news

Jen Reid statue replaces Edward Colson in daring dawn Bristol BLM action

15th July 2020 Janet Powe

Update: Thursday 16 July 2020 – Bristol City Council has removed the Jen Reid statue from the plinth and placed it in a museum to await collection by artist Marc Quinn

Catching the Bristol authorities totally unaware, a dawn action by BLM supporters has erected a stunning statue of Jen Reid, a BLM protester.

Jen was the protester who was photographed with raised fist on the empty plinth upon which once sat slave trader Edward Colston.

Two lorries and 10 people were involvement in the carefully planned erection of the Jen Reid statue.

The scuplture is by artist Marc Quinn.

Jen Reid told the Guardian, just before the statues were readied to depart the scene: “That’s pretty fucking ballsy, that it is.”

Bristol has a vibrant radical artist scene and the action at 5am in the morning has combined with the radical roots of the city, from the Bus boycott in 1963 to the St Pauls riot of 1981.

An estimated 20,000 mostly white Bristolians took part in the protest that toppled Colston on 7 June 2020.

Bristol is the home town of elusive radical street artist Banksy.

The Jen Reid statue will no doubt rile the right-wing and racists everywhere who claim that removing the Colston statue was an affront to history.

In reality the throwing of Colston into the dock was the perfect location for the monstrous human rights abuser, kidnapper and murderer.

Commuters were gathering around the statue this morning to discuss its import.

“It is incredible seeing it,” said the daughter of Reid, Leila Reid.

Artist Quinn said: “Jen created the sculpture when she stood on the plinth and rasied her arm in the air. Now we’ve crystalised it.”

He continued: “It look like it has always been here.”

Jen Reid video: she told friends “you’re going to see a lot more of me”

“I’m elated excited, I’m full of pride. I feel really really proud. I shed a tear. It’s all about keeping the conversation going… keeping black lives matter at the forefront and making history” – Jen Reid

Bristol, news

Hundreds of thousands join radical Black Lives Matter protests across the UK

7th June 2020 Janet Powe

More than 65,000 are marching in London now (Sunday 7 June).

The statue of a slave owner Edward Colston has been pulled down and thrown into the river at the thousands strong protest in Bristol today.

50,000 marched in London yesterday, 25,000 in Manchester and hundreds of thousands in cities and towns large and small all over the country.

The movement is growing and radicalising. And it is a global movement.

In the US, Democrat politicians and black office holders are being exposed for their years of inaction.

The mayor of Minneapolis was forced on to a “walk of shame” when he refused to commit in front of an audience of thousands of protesters, to defund the police.

The demand to defund the police is attacking the heart of the system and exposes the deep root and branch changes that are needed to end racial injustice and institutional discrimination.

Police attack London marchers

On the London demo yesterday the determination was on display for all to see.

Police decided to stop people leaving the protest at one point and decided to charge their cavalry at the peaceful marchers, with officer not looking where she was going and getting knocked off her horse.

This is a mass movement against racism the like of which has not been seen, at least in the US, since the 1960s.

Matt Hancock is a public health criminal

When Health minister Matt Hancock claims this is all about the US and the UK doesn’t have a problem with racism, it shows how out of touch this racist Tory government is. Having a few black and Asian faces in high places is not a badge of anti-racism. These people are doing the dirty work for the government.

With more than 1,700 people killed in police custody or after contact with a police officer since 1990, Hancock’s comment betrays his ignorance.

This is the government that has brought us the hostile environment, the Windrush scandal and the mounting disproportionate BAME death toll in this ongoing pandemic.

This is the governing party that refuses to investigate Islamophobia within its own ranks.

Police murder black people here in the UK too

In one month in June 2017 four black men were killed by British police, at least two in circumstances not dissimilar to the murder of George Floyd. Rashan Charles and Edson Da Costa died after being restrained by police. Choke holds by police are commonplace as is police brutality.

Black people in London are disproportionately fined – about half of all such fines – for breaking covid rules while Cummings can do as he pleases.

Yesterday, police blocked peaceful demonstrators from leaving the protest and then charged at them with horses. Why?

BAME Covid deaths: Tories to blame

Why is the government not holding a full public inquiry into disproportionate BAME deaths, as Diane Abbott and many other MPs are demanding?

Why is there still no blanket amnesty for all those caught up in the Windrush scandal? Why has only a statistically insignificant amount of compensation been paid to victims from the £200 million allocated?

Why are black people twice as likely to be killed by police and eight times more likely to be stopped and searched?

Why is black history still not integrated into the curriculum?

Why has Boris Johnson never apologised for all the racist remarks he has made, or for allowing a pseudo scientific article declaring black people to be inferior to appear in the Spectator magazine when he was editor?

These are just some of the questions this government and Hancock and a Johnson need to urgently answer with action not words.