Police unit to target green protesters
The Independent 7th November 1998
Jason Bennetto - Crime Correspondent
A national police unit is being set up to track green activists and public demonstrations amid fears the "eco-warriors" are becoming increasingly disruptive and violent. The intelligence squad which will use information from Special Branch officers, and MI5, will compile profiles of protesters and organisations considered to be potentially troublesome.
Among the people to be targeted are campaigners against road building and live animal exports, protesters at industrial disputes, hunt saboteurs and far-right groups. The unit will also draw up plans the Chief Constables can introduce to head off potential disorder.
The move follows growing concern among police chiefs that so called eco-warriors are becoming increasingly organised and creating an ever growing threat to public order.
Green and civil rights activists reacted with anger to the disclosure of the new outfit, which is to be called the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. They argued yesterday that the right to demonstrate were being undermined.
There are also fears that people on legal protests could be listed as troublemakers. The national unit, which is due to operational by the end of the year, will be based in Scotland yard. It is expected to be headed by Commander Barry Moss, head of Special Branch.
The new outfit will include three existing police teams. In South-west England an intelligence unit has been monitoring New Age Travellers and people who occupy land illegally. While in northern England a small team has been logging details of hunt saboteurs. The Animal Right National Index, which lists details of protesters, is already based at Scotland Yard.
Assistant Commissioner Anthony Speed of the Metropolitan Police, who chairs the Association of Chief Police Officers' Public Order sub committee said:
"Experience shows that the same people are involved in demonstrations - whether it's disruption of building works and motorways, runways, live animals for export, or people 'reclaiming' the streets.
"It tends to be the same people who support them and travel around the country. It's about keeping a database on them - identifying the main individuals".
He said that people repeatedly involved in clashes during industrial disputes, such as the miners' strike and the Wapping newspaper picketing, could also be targeted. He also sited the 1995 protests at Shoreham, Dover and Brightlingsea against animal live exports to the Continent, which at times resulted in violent clashes, as suitable areas for scrutiny.
"Special Branch officers at ports where trouble is taking place could use the system to communicate information to Chief Constables elsewhere".
He added that the unit could also be used to draw up information about National Front members and extreme left-wing activists who are considered likely to become involved in violence.
"All this information will be useful to Chief Constables - if you know certain groups are involved in an action you can anticipate greater disorder and violence and plan for it in advance", he said.
Chief Constables also want to build up action plans for dealing with eco incidents throughout the country.
Mr Speed gave the example of the police having to remove demonstrators who climbed into trees during protests at road building in the south-west.
"The information about how the police dealt with that will be useful to other forces," he explained.
Special Branches in forces in England and Wales, which gather intelligence about threats to national security, will also contribute information to the unit.
MI5, the Security Service, will also contribute details of individuals they believe to be involved in terrorist activity or serious disorder.
John Callaghan, overseas liaison director for Compassion in World Farming, the pressure group responsible for organising many of the demonstrations at Brightingsea in Essex and Shoreham in Sussex against the export of veal calves, condemned the extra monitoring of activists.
"This is going to far. We are constantly being videoed by the police - I'm worried as a law abiding person that we are coming under this kind of scrutiny. Peaceful demonstration is a part of a democratic society - it is part of our rights."
John Wadham, director of Liberty, the civil rights group. Argued that the unit would inevitably spend much of its time monitoring peaceful protest. "The problem is, without a right of privacy and right of protest, there will be inadequate controls and regulations," he said.
Ecology and green pressure groups have multiplied in the past few years and have become an increasing headache to the police.
In May, the organisation Reclaim the Streets caused serious disruption at the G8 summit in Birmingham and at other times has brought parts of London and Brighton to a standstill. The cost of covering the demonstrations against animal exports on the south Coast was more than £6m.
EU extends police surveillance
By Martin Walker in Brussels
Monday September 21, 1998
Britain has persuaded the rest of the European Union to join
an unprecedented police surveillance operation to gather and
share intelligence on all 'sizeable groups which may pose a
threat to law and order' that cross EU borders to attend pop
concerts, environmental and other demonstrations, and sporting
events.
At a stroke, the police surveillance co-operation system on
football hooligans, set up in 1996 for the European football
championships, has been extended to a range of other legal
activities, both political and social, which involve people
moving from one EU member state to another.
The threat to civil liberties and the right
of free assembly is clear," said Tony Bunyan of
Statewatch, a civil liberties group. "Such internal
security plans invite the surveillance of groups which
intend to cross borders to join a demonstration on a new
road or a nuclear power station, or to attend a rock
concert.
Targeted individuals and groups
will be listed on the Schengen Information System, the
Europe-wide computerised database available to all
police, immigration and border officials.
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The Schengen database has already been
criticised by civil liberties groups for including information on
individuals and groups supplied by a third country - except when
'it has clearly been obtained by a third state in obvious
violation of human rights'.
The new surveillance plan is based on a novel concept of
policing, defined in British documents to Brussels as Public
Order: Conflict Prevention. 'Conflict may be defined as any act
that is contrary to the general public's perception of
normality...It has the potential adversely to affect the status
quo,' says the British proposal, prepared for the EU's public
order co-operation group of police chiefs and senior officials.
It is marked for 'limited' distribution.
'Crime is well recognised and understood. But disorder, which
ranges from domestic disputes to lethal rioting, has been largely
ignored. Conflict is almost always a predictor of future crime
and more serious disorder,' the document says.
'The UK has found that football hooliganism is symptomatic of a
much wider problem. Hooligans often have criminal records that
include offences of violence, damage and dishonesty; moreover,
they are sometimes associated with political demonstrations and
direct action groups that have no sporting connections
whatsoever. Accordingly, conflict has impacted on all types of
organised events, including music festivals, environmental
protests and public holiday demonstrations.'
The EU joint home affairs council, chaired by the Home Secretary,
Jack Straw, and composed of his fellow EU interior ministers,
agreed without debate on May 26 on a programme of 'joint action
with regard to co-operation on law and order and security'.
It requires all 15 EU countries to share information on the size,
routes, nature and objective and background of all 'sizeable
groups which may pose a threat to law and order and security
(which) are travelling to another member state in order to
participate in events'.
The joint action agreement says: 'Related matters such as
guarding and protecting people and property may also form part of
the co-operation in question.'
The agreement also allows for intelligence sharing, training and
exercises, the assignment and posting abroad of unarmed liaison
officers - to be protected by the host country - and annual
meetings of EU police chiefs to review progress and consider
matters of common interest.
The agreement is a direct result of Britain's tenure of the EU
presidency in the first half of this year, but, unlike other
British initiatives in Europe, was not publicised.
The text and the British proposals that led to it will be
released this week in the first issue of Statewatch's publication
European Monitor, which has used EU transparency rules to obtain
official documents.
"This idea of conflict affecting the status quo would be
laughable if national and EU officials were not taking it so
seriously," Mr Bunyan said.
The British plan followed a survey of other EU police authorities
on the security problems posed by marches, political
demonstrations, football and other sports matches, pop concerts
and environmental protests. The other police forces were asked to
give estimates of the number of foreigners attending, and to
report on the kinds of security in force, including 'pre- and
post-event intelligence, use of non-police security teams and
riot police, and the use of batons, shields, dogs and horses'.
Alan Lodge / Tash: ... tash@gn.apc.org