Context for anyone out of the loop:
Sarah Everard was kidnapped and murdered by a police officer, her remains were identified earlier this week.
This resonated across the country, as women feel they cannot even trust police. A vigil was planned to honour her and also to become a Reclaim The Night march, where women nationwide would go out en masse at night in protest of being told to stay indoors to avoid getting murdered.
Initially this vigil was set to go ahead, but the met stepped in and declared that it was unsafe due to COVID (there is currently a ban on all peaceful protest as part of COVID restrictions, yet during lockdown the met has allowed other protests to go ahead if they believe they will get violent if they don’t. This literally discourages peaceful protest and encourages violent protest)
Of course the vigil goes ahead regardless and police move in to disperse it. Police become violent and they begin manhandling/grabbing/dragging the women who were just peacefully marching to honour the memory of a woman killed by a policeman.
[Image captions by gynoidgearhead: First, a video of a swarm of reflective-vest-wearing British police officers forcing two women in COVID masks to kneel on the ground as various people shout, before eventually dragging the two women away from behind. One of the women is initially holding a sign that says “We aren’t safe in our homes, how can we reclaim […]” The rest isn’t visible but looks like “our hearts?”.
Then a tweet by Stan Account (@tristandross): “This would be a horrific video of police indiscriminately running up to women and dragging them away from behind regardless, but given the context, this is absolutely obscene.”
Then a tweet by saranya (@sxranya): “The scenes at Clapham Common right now prove how Sarah Everard’s murder & everything surrounding it is at its core not just an issue of male violence but an issue of state violence. The state & the police have no interests in protecting women, they are there to protect themselves.”
Another by Marcus Barnett (@marcusbarnett_): “If you’re in uniform battering people attending a vigil for a woman murdered by your colleague, you should probably reassess your fucking life.”
Another by Grace Blakely (@graceblakely): “I was there a few hours before. It was packed by around 5, with a big police presence. They weren’t turning anyone around, or warning people against attending the vigil. They just sat, quietly, while women streamed onto the common. And as soon as it got dark, they did this.”
Another by Laura Smith (@LauraSmithCrewe): “Before anyone suggests differently, anti-mask protesters have been allowed to go and do their thing week after week. Women showing solidarity get smashed by the police!”
Another by Sabrina Huck (@Sabrina_Huck): “The vigil at Clapham Common was peaceful until the cops moved in - the anger of the crowd was raw. Women don’t feel protected by the police and the arrests tonight enforce that message. Solidarity with the sisters taken into custody tonight.”
Another by “Red ‘til I’m Dead” (@suziegeewizz): “If peaceful protests are essentially banned, then riots become entirely inevitable.”
End caption.]
And now the Tories are rushing through a bill that would make it illegal to “do an act” and “seriously annoy”, punishable up to 10 years in prison. Free speech is dead and the “defenders” of free speech are too busy blowing air up Piers Morgan’s arse to care
