I was there as part of a group of students from the People & Planet network, an organisation dedicated to empowering grassroots student campaigns on world poverty, human rights and the environment. Protesters swooped into the street from all directions at 12.30pm on the 2nd, occupying it for the next 12 hours to broadcast our message that our collapsing economic system was also responsible for the escalating climate crisis.
A tent city was set up, where a stove was built to be used for cooking, compost toilets were set up and generators on pedal power were used to pump out music. There were students like me, families with children, veteran protesters and people of every political stripe, uniting together.
At first, the police stood by at the edges of the protest, monitoring it. But at around 7pm they made their first attempt to break it up. Unprovoked and without any violence from the crowd, they charged in full riot gear, shouting at us to move back, and shoved and kicked when we passively resisted. (You can see an Indymedia video of this and what followed at http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/426086.html We put our hands in the air and chanted "This is not a riot!" and still they kept coming.
Eventually, they realised there were just too many of us to disperse and backed off.
For the next five hours there was a tense stand-off with the police. We maintained a human barricade at either end of the camp, sitting down in front of the police lines to protect the space. At intervals we moved slowly backwards to condense the camp into a defensible space. We thought we were safe. But in the early hours of the morning, the police doubled their efforts to break up the camp.
I was in a crowd of hundreds of protesters, sitting on the ground, trying to keep my spirits up as we faced off against the riot police fonts. Suddenly people starting shouting and screaming, and I could see the police begin to pluck people from the ground one by one. Without any provocation, those who refused to move were manhandled out of sight, while others shuffled desperately backwards, all the while being pushed by riot shields and hit with batons.
The small group I was in braced itself, linking arms and smiling nervously at each other as the police lines moved closer; I could see people collapsing under their strikes and being carried away. There was no space behind us to move and the crowd started panicking; I couldn't see what was happening. All I could see was the police coming closer.
Then they got to where I was sitting. I scrambled to my feet. Not able to make out what they were saying, I just saw a mass of angry faces shouting at me from behind helmets. I looked behind me and could see the crowd backing away; on either side I saw protesters being knocked down. I looked to the front again and then a single policeman, roaring at me, struck me in the chest with his shield.
It gets a bit hazy from then on. I blacked out briefly when I was knocked down, and was carried away by police medics. They cut my clothes open, made sure I could see and stand, and then just let me on my way while they grouped with other officers. I wandered around in a daze. The camp was a wreck, like a scene from a post-apocalyptic film. A few people, looking as lost as I was, shocked and hurt as me picked over the wreckage. The police lines had simply destroyed the camp – ripping apart the stereo systems and marquees, trampling tents and banners underfoot.
I found an officer and asked what was going to happen. He said that everything left on the street was going to be cleaned up by the council and dumped. This hurt even more than the bruises, even more than the trauma of having been terrorised and brutalised by the people supposed to protect us from harm. All we'd wanted to do was have a peaceful protest, exercising civil disobedience for 24 hours. We were going to clean up and clear away at midday the next day, leaving the street as we'd found it – but instead the police had caused a riot, scattering the protest and destroying our belongings along with our celebration.
I was astonished at the tactics used, but more at the fact that we'd been denied the right to peaceful protest. I'm still astonished.
But it's given me a new resolve. The movement for climate and economic justice can't be stopped. We're regrouping. In the end, it doesn't matter that our wonderful demonstration was ended so brutally. I don't think that disillusioned anyone about their politics – it will have only strengthened determination to keep on struggling in the face of opposition.
If our government doesn't want to see us protesting for economic and environmental justice, we'll just keep building the noise until they can't help but hear us
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