Blowe, Kevin

My work as coordinator of the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) has kept me busy for some months now supporting the rights of Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaigners to exercise their freedom of assembly.

XR activists have been out on the streets since 7 October and over 1,400 have been arrested so far. Now the police have abandoned any pretence at facilitating their rights and have imposed a blanket ban on XR protests covering the whole of London.

As well as…

In the weeks before the London Olympics, a sense of foreboding descended on many of the people who, like me, live and work in Newham in east London, one of the poorest and most ethnically-diverse parts of the capital.

This anxiety, shared even by those who are enthusiastic about the spectacle of the Games, was heightened by the stories about snipers in helicopters, missile-launchers on tower blocks and RAF fighters in the skies and predictions that it might become almost impossible to…