Red, Green, and Blue

One of the biggest stories in the UK at present is the relationship between democracy and the police – or as it has been expressed several times by Nick Hardwick, chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission - the police needed to remember that they were “servants, not masters” of the public.

G20 unhappiness grows

The death of Ian Tomlinson, a man who had been working in London on the day of the G20 protests and died after being hit and pushed to the ground by a policeman, shocked the world. Although he was first said to have died of a heart attack, as second post mortem revealed internal bleeding – leading to further concern that a cover-up may have been attempted. Since that first video footage, more has emerged, of a woman being struck in the face by police, of another being hit across the legs with a baton, despite the fact that her hands contain a camera and a cup of coffee and she could in no way be threat to the officer, and of a man being punched. The G20 protests were not wholly environmental, and the protestors were not wholly innocent of threat or harm – the damage they did to buildings was extensive. But so far, nobody has produced any evidence to suggest that protestors were a threat to the police. At least three complaints are being investigated, and one more is in the process of being considered.

Mud and floods in Lincolnshire

Less high profile protests have been going on around the world.  Not far away in Lincolnshire, England, concerns about ‘coastal realignment’ led to an imaginative protest. The Environment Agency in the UK has a complicated brief – current predictions say sea levels may rise by one metre over the next 100 years, and already nearly 400,000 people living near the Humber estuary are at risk of tidal flooding. Because of complex EU legislation 700 hectares of bird, invertebrate, fish and water vole habitats must be created in the flooded area, to make up for habitat losses caused both by rising sea levels and the increase in flood defences. But residents of Donna Nook are not happy – their beauty spot will be given over to flooding and the flood defences that currently keep it as a wetland will be moved further inland.  A local resident expressed his feelings by emptying two large tubs onto the table and forcing the EA regional manager to sit next to the muddy contents for the remainder of the meeting – the locals protest that they will lose an area of outstanding natural beauty and that there have already been substantial floods in the region that the EA has not be able to prevent, so moving flood defences inland is ‘giving up’ not trying to protect habitats.

Bridge Protest in Istanbul

Earlier this month, in Istanbul, Greenpeace used the visit of President Obama to Turkey to urge him to focus on preventing global warming. A massive banner was hung over the Bosphorus river, by activists whose banner bore the message Save the Climate for Peace in English, Turkish and Arabic. It has been reported that police detained 16 activists after the protest.

Carolina takes to the hair

And in Carolina, Florence County residents have made quite an unusual protest against a proposed coal-fired power plant in their county. They organised a mercury testing campaign in a local barbershop. Hair samples were taken from five people who live near the proposed coal plant site so that mercury levels can be tested. Mercury is a health risk as it is a by-product of the coal burning process, but the local environment agency has not undertaken mercury testing.  One resident, commenting on the local environment said “With mercury levels already so high in the rivers, I’m very concerned about putting more mercury in it.”

Ritual cleansing for New South Wales gold mine

And in New South Wales, Australia, protestors from Cyanide Watch tried to halt operations at a gold mine. Every year at Easter, the activists gather at Barrick Gold site near Lake Cowal to hold a ritual smoke cleansing ceremony. Cyanide Watch aims to stop the transport of cyanide to the Lake Cowal gold mine. Since work began on the site in 2006, the Easter protest has taken place by environmental organisations and Wiradjuri Native Title holders whose objections to the mine on their ancestral land were overruled by the New South Wales Government.

Lincolnshire sunset courtesy of SubZeroConsciousness at Flickr under a creative commons licence

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