Reclaim the Streets - The truth is out there! On the first of May the local news reported an illegal protest that had happened the previous day. The reports didn't lie, but it can hardly be said that they reported "the whole truth". The whole truth will vary according to what each person saw, (and what was recorded on university security cameras) but this is the whole truth according to me, and I was there. Once upon a time there was a glorious sunny day in Manchester (that's the truth I saw it with my own eyes). About three hundred protesters and students gathered on a side street between Oxford road and Upper Brook street to try to make the point the traffic is out of control, pollution is too high, public transport has been privatised, the streets aren't safe, bicyclists are marginalised... you know the score it was a Reclaim The Streets. Shortly after one, a Salford van hire van appeared over the grass bearing the gift of music to the awaiting crowd. ----==== Lysophobik crew... BRING IT ON ! ====---- The people were one, "One of the people" got played, and there wasn't one person that wasn't a happy punter, except for a paranoid few that had noticed a policeman wandering around with a huge set of bolt croppers. Now you know what they say, "never trust a copper with a cropper". Could it be paranoia, or were they really watching you. Then one of the police lines marched in parallel forward, then the other line, not far but enough to give the feeling of being closed in on. One of my friends asked a senior officer what they were planning to do with the weapon (pointing to the bolt croppers). "What weapon, I can't see any weapons" came the vain attempt at a lie. Ten seconds later ten coppers stormed past her knocking her out the way. Bearing their truncheons they tried to rush the van, heavy handed is an understatement, and anyway no-one gave a shit about their heavy hands it was their truncheons that was primary concern. Some then knicked the generator and ran of with it, while the remaining few tried to circle the van. The Manchester crew was having none of it, a completely peaceful afternoon in the sun was being ruined by some brain-dead thugs getting their truncheons out and kicking off. Now at this point bear in mind that at an RTS there is only one side. RTS is not an anti-racist march (with protesters and extreme right opposing), there is no potential for violence in the crowd, there is no enemy. Obviously there are no cars on site, which is what the protest is about. There is no enemy until the police make themselves an enemy, which is what they did. Any one that has been to a peaceful protest before knows full well that there is a policy of kicking it off so that it can be reported as a riot, but not in Manchester, at least not before now. I for one was (perhaps naively) shocked when it happened. So in they came and out they got thrown, and Bingo, one peaceful protest turned in to a riot, "you can phone the press now Bobby".

Some pics from the October 2006 Reclaim the streets in Brussels. The last few are from the top of the big white building. This was squatted at the end of the action - in fact opened directly in front of that big line of police.