In the months since people took to the streets against racism and police brutality in Cardiff, protesters have been quietly taken to court on inflated charges. The silence from our political class is deafening.
Image: people protest the police and crime bill, Cardiff, by Tom Davies
This is a story about a crackdown on anti-racist protesters in Cardiff and the punishment of people who have spoken out against police brutality.
It is a story about young people being given life changing criminal records because they briefly shone a torch at a police officer. But despite the alarming nature of the reprisals, they are barely registering among the Welsh political class.
To begin, we need to go back to the start of the year.
In early January, hundreds of people gathered outside Cardiff Bay Police Station following the death of Mohamud Hassan, the 24 year old Black man who died after being released without charge by South Wales Police and who told several witnesses he had been physically assaulted by cops.
This website reported on the protests at the time and has produced the most in-depth investigation anywhere into the whole case and the failings of both South Wales Police and the IOPC.
But back to the protests. Now we know they were held during a national lockdown, but we also know that outside transmission rates are very low and the vast majority of people were wearing masks.
Even still, the lockdown was reason enough for almost all politicians – bar very few exceptions- not to show up or even express any support online. Either that, or they used it as effective cover for not getting involved in something they saw as too controversial. We don’t really know.
We should remember that Mohamud Hassan was a young healthy man who died hours after telling friends, family and a taxi driver that he had been violently assaulted by police, and where clear bruising was seen on the initial autopsy. Several officers are now under investigation, including for excessive use of force and even ignoring the fact that Mohamud collapsed whilst in the back of a police van.
His death came just seven months after Wales had erupted in protest as part of the global Black Lives Matter movement, resulting in politicians, businesses and various public bodies declaring their opposition to racism. All of this was sparked by racist police brutality in the US, the very same issue people in Cardiff were protesting over in January.
Yet when it happened on their doorstep, the overwhelming majority of these organisations that had declared themselves anti-racist last summer simply said nothing.
Instead, it was left to the mainly young protesters, and those who knew Mohamud, to take a stand. But they were largely left isolated, with a lack of interest or support from politicians and mainstream media alike.
It is undoubtedly the case that this helped create an atmosphere where the police have been able to retroactively punish protesters who were outside the station in January.
Immediately after the protests, an activist with Black Lives Matter Cardiff and Vale, Bianca Ali, was visited by South Wales Police at her home and ordered to pay a fine after they accused her of being one of the protest organisers.
The incident, coming so soon after Mohamud’s death, was picked by certain sections of the mainstream press and generated a prompt backlash against the actions of South Wales Police.
But it also acted as a precursor for what we have witnessed in the months since the protests, which is equally as disturbing yet going largely unnoticed.
At one of the protests in January, people spontaneously shone their phone torches at the police as a symbolic gesture to ‘shine a light on police brutality.’
But months later, people who did this are being sent to court on charges of obstructing the cops or even assaulting them.
Many people reading this will have had a phone torch shined in their face before – have they ever sought a prosecution against the individual who did it?
If not, they should ask why the police are seeking just that.
In March, voice.wales reported on one of the first cases of this happening, when a protester described being dragged out of bed by police and bundled into the back of a van.
This was one of a number of cases where people were either arrested in connection to the protests or asked to attend police interviews under threat of arrest. But there were more that were going under the radar as well.
At a Kill the Bill protest in March, the civil rights lawyer Hillary Brown was introduced to a woman who had attended the Mohamud Hassan protests in January with her two teenage children. After the woman said she would be happy to talk to a reporter, Brown contacted me about the case
The woman in question, Claire James, had received an aggressive visit from the police who wanted to speak to her two teenage children, who were aged 19 and 14. Claire was made to go to the station where her children were questioned. The 14 year old was accused of using an offensive word whilst passing by an officer, whereas the 19 year old was accused of shining his phone torch at police. For this, riot vans were stationed round the back of the property when the plain clothed police officers called round.
Later, Claire James also received a call from social services. You can read the whole story about the home visit and interrogation in my report here.
In July, the 19 year old was made to go to court and ordered to pay a £159 fine out of his Universal Credit payments after the judge ruled he had obstructed a police officer by shining a torch at them.
Mark Redfern went to Cardiff Magistrates court to sit in on the trial and wrote about it for voice.wales here, noting how police had been searching through their own video footage to build cases against people who were protesting peacefully.
Following the article, some people got in touch with voice.wales saying they would like to help the family with the fine. We passed this information on to the mother who set up a Go Fund me and the fine was paid within hours.
Clearly it is a sign of the solidarity out there that it was paid so quickly, and Claire James has been incredibly thankful both to those who donated and to voice.wales for highlighting the story, but these fines should not have been handed down in the first place.
Mark Redfern later attended another trial of another protester accused of obstructing an officer after they apparently shined a torch at them. This activist was found not guilty after they successfully argued against the charge, but said that it was grossly unfair that others had been told to plead guilty and take the fine.
In this trial, it was also revealed that one police officer who testified said he feared permanent retina damage from the phone torch, but admitted that he had not been to see an optician since the protest to check for any lasting injury to his sight.
There will be more to come out about these cases against protesters, but for now we should take stock of what has happened.
The central point here is that people who attended a protest after the shocking death of a young Black man are now being retrospectively punished by the state. The widespread nature of it indicates that it is being implemented as a form of collective punishment against anti-racism protesters who directed their anger squarely at South Wales Police.
If people had shone torches at cops in another setting, would they have been treated in the same way, or are people being punished for embarrassing the police?
Whatever the answer, the effects are obvious.
At a basic level, someone who has a criminal record after this is going to feel far more hesitant about attending future protests. But a wider effect is that the act of protest itself is criminalised. Remember that none of these charges have anything to do with new Covid laws and are being brought before the draconian Police and Crime Bill comes into effect.
We should take a moment to reflect that after Mohamud Hassan’s death, the only people to face the law are those protesting in his name.
And at the same time, these cases are barely registering in the Welsh media or political establishment. If they were causing more of a stir, and South Wales Police were feeling real political pressure, would they have felt as confident taking these protesters to trial?
As it stands, they have been able to do so safe in the knowledge that they won’t feel the heat.
Of course, at voice.wales we will continue to report and investigate these cases and report on them as best we can, something we wouldn’t be able to do without the support of our subscribers.
This will undoubtedly have an impact on the amount of attention this important issue receives. But ultimately, it will be the act of protest itself and the strength of the anti racist movement that will push back against the tide of authoritarianism we are witnessing.
As Black Lives Matter Cardiff and Vale said recently in response to the crackdown:
“We do not have to be afraid of the cops and we do not have to be afraid of their bullying tactics,”
SC Cook is an editor of voice.wales
