ROLLING PROTESTS AGAINST GENDERED VIOLENCE, RACISM AND FOR THE RIGHT TO PROTEST HIT THE CAPITAL THIS WEEK. MORE ARE PLANNED FOR SATURDAY AS NEWS EMERGES THAT THE POLICE AND CRIME BILL HAS BEEN DELAYED AFTER MASS ACTION. THESE ARE THE IMAGES FROM THE STREETS, BY PHOTOGRAPHER TOM DAVIES
Words by F Clark. All images Copyright Tom Davies.
The second Cardiff protest in days took place last night, as hundreds gathered outside Cardiff Central Police station in solidarity against police brutality, institutional racism, violence against women, and to draw attention to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which passed its first parliamentary hurdle on Tuesday.
The bill groups together a range of changes to enforcement and sentencing in England and Wales but has come under particular criticism for its controversial restrictions against protesting, which could see police chiefs able to put more conditions on static protests, such as start and finish times, noise limits, and the ability to apply these rules even to a lone person demonstrating. The bill passed through parliament with 359 votes to 263.
Last night however, the femist direct action group Sister Uncut, which led the protest in Clapham on Saturday and have been at the forefront of the movement in London, called it a win that the Bill was being delayed. “This is a victory, but we will not stop until we #KillThisBill. This will only happen if we escalate the resistance and build a mass movement,” the wrote on Twitter. A further protest is planned for Cardiff on Saturday at 2pm outside Cardiff Central Police station & in Swansea tonight, Friday 19th March, in Castle Gardens at 6pm.
The protest in Cardiff on Wednesday evening brought together arguments against the police, but also the Tories – particularly after a vigil for Sarah Everard – the 33-year-old who was murdered by a Metropolitan police officer – turned sour last Saturday night after officers took a “hands-on” approach to women who were peacefully laying flowers and candles for Sarah.
In Cardiff, amongst chants of “say her name: Sarah Everard” the focus turned to the future of Wales and Britain if the right to protest becomes compromised, with one woman holding a placard reading “If you don’t want protest, you will have riots”, and another homemade sign reading “there is no end to protest until there is an end to oppression.”
One young woman grabbed the mic to specifically call out Home Secretary Priti Patel: “even though [Priti Patel] is a woman of colour, this woman of colour represents no one from the working class, regardless of whether they are women of colour or people of colour.”
Women also came forward to quietly lay flowers and candles for Sarah, and several took the mic to voice their own experiences of sexual harassment.
One specifically called out a police officer who had spoken to her on a dating app and since deleted his messages, while another young woman bravely told of her experience of being raped and of not being believed by the police when she went to them for help.
Attention was also turned to daily oppression experienced by Black people and people of colour, and to the names of those who have died recently: Mohamud Hassan, the young Black man who died hours after leaving police custody in January, and Mouayed Bashir, who was of Sudanese descent and also died after being restrained by officers in his Newport home just over one month later.
“We don’t want to go in,” shouted BLM Cardiff and Vale protester Bianca Ali, pointing towards the Cardiff Central Police Station. “We’re scared we won’t come back out again.”
Demands for police accountability and release of bodycam footage were called to reveal the true circumstances surrounding the death of Mohamud Hassan, following Tuesday’s news that misconduct notices have been served on a further three South Wales Police officers and a custody officer. An initial notice was served on one officer back in February, bringing the total to five.
Justice was also demanded for Christopher Kapessa, the 13-year-old Black teen who drowned in the River Cynon after being pushed in by a white peer in summer 2019, and Siyanda Mngaza, the young black woman sentenced to four and a half years in prison by an all-white jury that found her guilty of grievous bodily harm (GBH) after her family claim she simply defended herself against a racially-motivated attack.
The Cardiff protest also brought to the fore the disproportionality of stop and searches and the new bill which would see the maximum penalty for criminal damage to a memorial increase from three months to 10 years. This prompted many to point out that politicians are more concerned with looking after statues than they are in seeing justice served for victims of rape and sexual harassment.
Writing on their social media, Black Lives Matter Cardiff and Vale wrote: “we have to keep fighting against this racist, misogynistic system, and defend the right to protest. They can’t arrest us all.”
A further protest is planned for Cardiff on Saturday at 2pm outside Cardiff Central Police station & in Swansea tonight, Friday 19th March, in Castle Gardens at 6pm.
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ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT TOM DAVIES
