Government Decides Who Protests At G20: Violent anarchists allowed to smash up buildings despite announcing target in advance, yet anti-poverty group barred from protesting
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, April 2, 2009
The British authorities seemed to have little problem with allowing a group of violent black bloc anarchists smash up the RBS building while provoking police yesterday, despite the group announcing their target in advance, yet a legitimate anti-poverty organization has had its “accreditation” to protest at the G20 removed on the orders of Downing Street.
This once again underscores the completely undemocratic power of the government to decide who is allowed to protest against them and who is not. When you have to get permission from the government to exercise a God-given right, as in China or Russia, then we know we are already living in a police state. The freedom to protest is not one that has to be “accredited” by the state, a license to protest as it were, it is an innate human right.
Apparently, if you wear black hoods and scarves, smash up private property and provoke police, then that’s absolutely fine and you’ll be left largely untouched. But God forbid if you’re a middle of the road anti-poverty group that just wants to peaceably march down the street.
“An anti-poverty group expressed “outrage” after its accreditation to attend Thursday’s G20 summit was suddenly withdrawn on Wednesday,” reports the Telegraph.
“The World Development Movement said it had no idea why the decision was taken but claimed it was on the orders of 10 Downing Street.”
“The group, which was part of last weekend’s huge (and peaceful – ed) Put People First Alliance which held a rally in London, said the Foreign Office received a note from 10 Downing Street telling it to revoke the accreditation.”
Benedict Southworth, the group’s director, said that the decision was part of the government’s plan to “stage-manage events and prevent voices of dissent and disagreement being heard.”
The black bloc anarchist assault on the Royal Bank of Scotland building yesterday certainly had an air of being stage-managed. The target was announced in advance, the authorities knew that the building was a prime target, and yet it was the only one in the street not boarded up. A cafe across the street was boarded up and yet the RBS building was left completely vulnerable to attack.
Stage-managed? Press photographers outnumber anarchists as the RBS siege is perfectly “produced” for a live television audience.
Cue a relatively small gaggle of black-bloc anarchists, followed by an similarly sized press corps to photograph every angle of every smashed window, and you have the makings of a stage-managed event to instantly be consumed by the watching middle classes thus enlisting their support for a police state crackdown. In this instance, the police stood back and let them do pretty much whatever they liked, which is highly suspicious within itself, but the week is far from over and a wider crackdown could ensue now that public acquiescence has been garnered through repeated footage showing the hostility of the anarchists.
We’re not saying for a minute that every anarchist group is working at the behest of the authorities as provocateurs, nor that the majority are not legitimate protesters expressing their right to free speech, but as we have documented, this particular black bloc sect are at best completely infiltrated by provocateurs who can routinely be relied upon to provide the media with violent footage with which to demonize legitimate protesters at every major global summit stretching back nearly two decades.