Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Massive Critical Mass Defies SOCPA Exclusion Zone

imc london | 28.10.2005 18:26 | London

"...it's a friday night, it's like a fucking party, it's like an RTS on bikes!"
Cyclist from Birmingham

Friday, Oct 28. Almost 1000 cyclists soon growing to a critical mass of an estimated minimum of 2000 cycled around central London. The meeting point was nearby the restricted SOCPA zone in front of the National Film Theatre. The CM moved on to Parliament Square and Downing Street. The samba band was on wheels for the occasion and many were in Halloween attire.
Pics [1 | 2 | 3] Pic-reports [1 | 2 | 3] Reports [1] Video reports [1 | 2]

This is the first London Critical Mass ride after participants were informed about possible arrests at future Critical Mass rides. The Metropolitan Police demanded that the 'organisers' give notice of the route in advance [report].

Solidarity rides are taking place simultaneously in Bristol [more] and Brighton, Nottingham, Leeds and Gothenburg. We are collecting updates from the London streets in a timeline.

the hulk
the hulk


The Serious Organised Crime And Police Act 2005 was brought in to ban demonstrations within a one mile radius of Parliament, and to remove the very embarrising presence of Peace Activist Brian Haw. It has been defied on a number of occasions since it was introduced this summer with arrest and demonstrations. Background [1 | 2 | 3 | 4]

And here is a copy of rikki's report on the night:

this month there was a call-out for a large critical mass in response to police threats to 'enforce legislation' to treat it as a protest requiring organisation and application for permission. the response to the call-out was absolutely huge, with 1,200 cyclists (that's just the official police estimate!) taking over the streets of central london in a wonderfully anarchic and self-policing jaunt round the capital.

as well as several loud sound systems, the 'rhythms of resistance' samba band took to trikes, rickshaws, roller-blades, and bikes, to provide a fantastic carnival soundtrack to the ride that had passers-by dancing in the streets.

apart from a few irate drivers, and, it has to be said, the daily mail-fed vitriol of a few stereotypical taxi drivers (though many were cool too), the response was generally good-natured considering the traffic havoc caused.

despite the threatening letter of the previous month, it seems the police had reconsidered their authoritarian stance, and provided a truly excellent and sensible facilitation of the ride, mainly consisting of calming down any drivers who tried to take the law into their own hands, and occasionally aiding blocking junctions as the mass passed (although the sheer size meant that they couldn't be at all relevant junctions at all times and much of this was left to cyclists themselves). legal observers reported no known arrests, and in fact virtually no trouble anywhere. the policing comprised just approximately 20 outriders on bicycles and one van following - there was some concern about the 'shoot-to-kill policy' when it was spotted that police bikes carried the logo of gun manufacturers 'smith&wesson', but thankfully there were no assassinations last night.

the route went slowly over waterloo bridge, along the strand, through the mall (taking it completely over at times), past buck house, and then down to parliament square, where the new 'serious organised crime act' legislation banning protest in and around the square is supposed to be in force.

it demonstrates the arbitrary, farcical nature of this law that on tuesday morning just two people with banners from campaigning group 'justice not vengeance' were arrested for a protest outside downing street, one of them possibly facing up to 51 weeks in prison for being an 'organiser', while last night, more than a thousand cyclists cleared the square of traffic, parked up, danced to the sound of the samba band, and used amplified sound systems to shout anti-war and anti-government slogans. there were no arrests!

in their own time, after about twenty minutes, the procession rode up whitehall, stopping outside downing street and holding up their bikes in the air in front of the gates, then on slowly up through trafalgar square and charing cross road to centrepoint, where crowds joined in the samba dancing in the streets for a while. heading west along oxford street, they flooded into the oxford circus junction, in what looked like a scene from the infamous mayday (2001?) when police kettled a huge crowd at this spot for many hours. last night however, the twenty police bicyclists just watched in amusement and helped stop the traffic while the colourful mob celebrated their freedom for a while before making their way down regent's street to piccadilly circus for another rest.

by now it was nearly half past ten, the mass had got a little split up, and everyone one was winding down. gradually the wheeled massive congregated off-road on the upper part of trafalgar square, set up the sound system, cracked open the beers and smokes, and had a post-mass party for a while. the police left, people began to drift away in to the night, and on to various parties, the rain started up, and a peaceful, empowering, celebratory experience was over for another month.

if you missed it and want to come along, the next one is the 25th november. if you came and enjoyed it (how could you not?), then see you all next month too.

more details on the www.criticalmasslondon website.

imc london

Additions

It's not over till they retract the letter

21.11.2005 17:35

The letter has not been retracted, CM is still under threat, there has been no 'climb down' we have not won yet.

It was great to see so many people out on the ride last month, the ride was slow because people acted like sheep and stood around at every junction waiting to be told what to do, rather than leaving those who wanted to bait cars and cops to it and pushed through to join the front of the ride.

This is not however the end, but don't ignore the threat, there is even more reason to build up numbers for this Friday 25th Nov, the cold weather will cut numbers, and those of us out to defend our right to ride will be no less likely to be hassled by the police than last month.

So don't celebrate too soon, get out there, wrap up warm and stick with the mass.

CMLondon cyclist since 1998


Comments

Display the following 7 comments

  1. Resist — Buba
  2. Critical Mass Defies Police Commissioner Idiocy — Freedom Rider
  3. CM London October 2005: some subjective impressions — Dougie
  4. A small point.. — Doug.
  5. Oct 28th Crit Mass Total Riders — Dullard
  6. Slowness — Freeforall
  7. see also- — ~~~
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech