As if to garner up all the waiverers, as if any more reason were needed to convince people to have taken to the streets yesterday Jamal alerted me to the following story which has just been released by David Mery who was recently picked up and arrested under the terrorism laws for looking allegedly suspicious whilst at an Underground station. The actual facts of this case are staggeringly banal and go much of the way to show how the tragic murder of Jean Charles De Menezes at Stockwell station occured.

For those of you outside the UK, I suspect you may not be aware of the plight of the Brazilian man who was the wrong colour and in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid for it with his life.

The initial reports on the day in question were that a man had been shot in London having been thought of as a serious terrorist suspect. Eye-witness accounts were quick to come out that the man was of Middle Eastern origin and that he had been carrying a rucksack with wires coming out of it.

A great deal of this information turns out to be what people wanted to see, the truth is rather different.

On the morning in question at 9.30 Jean Charles De Menezes left home from his flat in South London a building which was being watched by police. At that particular moment in time the on duty surveillance officer was having a piss so unable to give report on whether De Menezes was the suspect they were looking out for. De Menezes boarded the number 2 bus to Stockwell tube station, a surveillance officer reported that whilst he could not identify him positively as Osman Hussein, the man under police surveilance he claimed De Menezes had distinctive “Mongolian eyes”.

The “gold command” was issued at this point, this macabre directive gave armed officers the authority to stop de Menezes from going into tube station and the powers to apprehend using any means necessary specifically allowing police to kill the suspect.

Initial reports directly after the event suggested that de Menezes had run into the Tube station thus giving police officers the impression that they were going to have to stop him by force. Eye-witness reports claimed that a man of asian extraction had a heavy jacket on with a rucksack that some claimed had protruding wires. They say that warnings were given and the man tried to escape police. This all turns out to be far from the case, as can be seen from CCTV footage de Menezes did not run into tube stn. in fact quite the contrary he stopped to pick up a Metro free newspaper, did not vault ticket barriers as had also been suggested but used oyster card to operate barriers. De Menezes was not wearing a heavy jacket, not running away from Police, he only quickened step to catch the arriving train and it was at this point that armed officers were given positive identification and authorisation to shoot to kill. No warnings were given – De Menezes was grabbed round the arms and torso and shot 7 times in head from 12 inches.

It is therefore not only extremely disturbing that the police are pursuing a shoot to kill policy but all the more so that there should be such a slapdash process in the leadup to such a terminal and tragic outcome. It is almost as uncomfortable that due to the nature of the propaganda war that so many people can have been duped into believing they saw precisely what the establishment wants them to see. Sadly this is not the truth and exposes the danger of this ficticious war. You only have to look at Charles Clarke, desperate to make link between 2 London incidents in July despite evidence suggesting they were not linked. One has to seriously question the 2nd incident, there are many factors that do not add up.

If the propaganda is properly deconstructed it becmoes patently obvious how they are continually trying to ferment fear, mistrust and anger so as to erode every last piece of costly civil liberties that we have. They will use any weapon of the modern times to do so. To try to limit the damge from the de Menezes fiasco the right-wing prief received briefings that apparently de Menezes had overstayed his visa and was therefore working here illegally. This was designed to off-set the fury of the liberals and the left with the idea for those on the right that this was the killing of an illegal alien. This was a callous and cynical smokescreen from the truth which was that the “war on terror” has led the operations of the state to murder one of its citizens. Will Tony Blair stand trial for the murder of Jean Charles De Menezes? After all Chief Comissioner of the Metropolitan Police claims that the shoot to kill policy was authorised at the highest level. No, the likelihood is that the officers responsible will get out of it under the defence that they were “just following orders”. The government will lament the failures in intelligence and announce an investigation to be carried out by a ‘safe pair of hands’ Lord. That’s the current modern way. You have 2 choices: accept it as an inevitablity and shut the fuck up for fear of being shipped off to Belmarsh, or do something about it with the possibility that if you become too much of a threat you’ll be shipped off to Belmarsh. So, book me in for a bed in D Wing by the window. Just call me Prisoner 57819!

Song Of The Day ~ Bloc Party – So Here We Are

Original Comments:


jamal made this comment,
To be honest, when that cell door closes on you, bang on the wall and you may find its me that replies!
The continous erosion of our liberties in this country is a joke. It will continue as the majority will believe the propaganda and therefore support it in one way or another. What it will really take to overcome the injustice spurred on by the terrorist hype will not stop unless people are prepared to experiance some hardship to achieve change. The state has substantial control and I cant realistically see it decreasing in the near future. These day even the “radical” protestors have to apply for a permit before they march! I read recently an article about the detention terror laws which is effectively imprisonment without trial or reasonable guilt. Nonetheless, many will sit in their houses thinking this is just. personally i think there are graver times ahead!

-Redbaron responds – I’ll make sure I bang on the wall, Jamal, it’ll be nice to have a chat with someone! I think indeed you may be right about the grave times ahead but I think this may have the effect of forcing a galvanisation of support one way or the other. There is no longer much space in the middle ground so extreme are the policies. Whether or not those of us against the system as it stands can unite against our common enemy in which case we would win easily, or whether in-fighting allows us to be picked off by that enemy group by group, that I cannot say. –

comment added :: 26th September 2005, 00:25 GMT+01 :: http://opinionated.blogsome.com/
Mark Ellott made this comment,
I think most of us who are concerned about our liberties picked up on the David Mery story. Welcome to Britain, land of free speech, expression and movement.
-Redbaron responds – I wish I hadn’t known about it before the w/e, made for a slightly uncomfortable tube ride into Central London what with me all decked out for the march and carrying a small black rucksack! –

comment added :: 26th September 2005, 15:52 GMT+01 :: http://longrider.blog-city.com
Mark Ellott made this comment,
As an addendum to that, I’m not convinced that this is a straightforward left/right divide as you imply. Rather, it is authoritarian/libertarian. The folk over at Samizdata are as far to the right as you could imagine – they frighten me sometimes – but they are equally horrified by the Mery and Menezes stories. Their solution is an armed populace that shoots back…
-Redbaron responds – It’s worth exploring, but I think I have my authoritarian moments, I am not after all an anarchist and the system I favour has more structure. I think that those on the right who may consider themselves libertarian are not being realistic as to the causes of this problem. Samizdata’s answer to it is a prime example. –

comment added :: 26th September 2005, 15:58 GMT+01 :: http://longrider.blog-city.com
Mark Ellott made this comment,
Indeed – and no, I’m not in favour of a gun wielding populace either… It’s worth bearing in mind that the Samizdatas will regard this behaviour as epitomising the left in much the same way as you have referred to it as being of the right. Left and right are more to do with one’s position on economics rather than big government and overbearing state control. This is very much about a government that has gone off the authoritarian scale. Consequently, we find ourselves on this issue at least, sharing the same platform as the gun totin’ Samizdatas and the hunting lobby. Big Brother is making strange bedfellows for us…
comment added :: 27th September 2005, 17:49 GMT+01 :: http://longrider.blog-city.com