Star date: 3rd March 2014

GMP KETTLE RESIDENTS TRYING TO PROTEST ON PUBLIC FOOTPATH

"The police seem to have forgotten their remit, they've lost the plot" Colin

Greater Manchester Police inspectors this morning denied local residents and anti-fracking campaigners the right to protest on Barton Moss Road, the public footpath used by lorries delivering to the iGas exploratory drilling site.

After a two hour lock-on in the road by three protectors, residents were kettled at the side of the road by Tactical Aid Unit officers, allowing lorries to drive unimpeded up the lane for the first time in three months.

Full details here…

For three months, daily demonstrations have taken place on Barton Moss Road, with residents and anti-fracking campaigners slow walking lorries up the lane to the iGas exploratory drilling site. This morning inspectors from Greater Manchester Police would not allow the daily demonstration to happen, with officers from its Tactical Aid Unit kettling people at the side of the road while the lorries drove in unimpeded.

Furious local residents argued with police officers, saying that their right to protest on a public footpath had been denied. The police action followed a three man lock-on in the middle of Barton Moss Road which took the GMP Protester Removal Team two hours to clear.

According to the Protect Barton Moss twitter feed, police had said that two hours was `long enough'. But it left those who were not part of the three man lock-on angry that their personal human right to protest had been violated.

"It's yet another instance where, to me, the police seem to have forgotten their remit, they've lost the plot" said Colin, from the Barton Moss Community Protection Camp "They have now deemed themselves as fit to decide when we can protest and when we can't, and if we can protest how long we can protest for.

"A policeman actually said to me this morning `We've given you your right to protest' and for me that sets major alarm bells ringing because, excuse me, the right to protest is something that we inherently have, it's not something the police have any right to give or not to give us.

"There's the European Human Rights Articles 10 and 11, the United Nations version" he explained "Just like there is Article 9, the right to not be arbitrarily arrested - yet sixty per cent of all the arrests are totally arbitrary in as much as ten people are doing the same thing and only, say, two are made an example of, apparently chosen at random. It's more of the same. The police are making it up as they go along for all appearances, to suit the corporate agenda."

Last night and today, campaigners from Barton Moss occupied land outside the Greater Manchester Police headquarters in Newton Heath, Manchester in protest at `police brutality and violence' – now they are adding the denial of protest to their agenda.

See also Salford Star article, Greater Manchester Police headquarters occupied by Barton Moss Campaigners – click here  

Photos by Sophie from Frack Free Walkden and Beyond and Steven Speed www.frackfreewalkden.co.uk @frackfreewalkdn