‘A man has died after being Tasered by police officers in Cumbria.

Police were called to Hartington Street, in Barrow, at 18:30 BST on Tuesday, following reports of a man causing a disturbance.

A Taser was used during the arrest of the man, who was in his 20s, and he later complained of feeling unwell. He was taken to hospital, where he died.

The incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

A Cumbria Police spokesman said: “Neighbourhood police officers attended the scene and arrested a male on suspicion of causing criminal damage and, during the arrest, a Taser was deployed.

“The man became unwell following the arrest and was taken to Furness General Hospital by officers.

“At around 9pm the man, who was in his 20s and lived locally, was pronounced dead.”‘

The Attorney General was accused of bowing to political pressure last night after it emerged that no police officer will be prosecuted for shooting dead a man armed with a wooden table leg.

The killing of Harry Stanley, a painter and decorator from east London, raises concern about whether the criminal justice system is capable of holding police officers to account for shooting dead members of the public. In the past 12 years no police officer has been successfully prosecuted for any of the 30 fatalities caused by police marksmen.

Concern over police officers’ accountability for their use of firearms has been heightened by the controversy surrounding the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Underground station in London on 22 July. The Brazilian was shot dead after marksmen wrongly suspected he was a suicide bomber.

Last night, human rights campaigners accused the Crown Prosecution Service of giving the police immunity in gun death cases, while Mr Stanley’s widow said she was “devastated” at the outcome of the inquiry.

The Justice for Harry Stanley campaign said: “The CPS and the Attorney General have illustrated very clearly that the police not only have the right to shoot to kill, but they will be afforded total immunity from prosecution. This is clearly the most serious attack not just on the Stanley family but a warning to all the other families whose loved ones are shot dead, while going about their everyday business.”

Lawyers for the family and the group Inquest said they suspected the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, may have influenced the decision not to bring charges against any officers.

Daniel Machover, who represents Mr Stanley’s widow, Irene, said he had ” genuine concern that Lord Goldsmith’s input may have influenced or determined the final decision”. He added: “What we know is that there was dialogue between the DPP and the Attorney General and a lot of to-ing and fro-ing before the family and police were told of the decision.”

Deborah Coles, a co-director of Inquest, said: “You must ask whether or not there is a political policy at play in these cases and whether there was a political context in which this particular decision was made.”

Last night, the Attorney General denied there was any political interference in the decision. A spokesperson for the Attorney General said: “The decision not to prosecute was taken by an experienced Crown Prosecution Service lawyer on the advice of leading counsel and was reviewed and approved by the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Attorney General was consulted and agreed with the CPS decision. It is absolutely wrong and misleading to suggest that there was any political influence. It is standard practice for the DPP to consult the Attorney in high-profile or complex cases.”

The death of Mr Stanley, 46, from Hackney, east London, has become one of the most controversial police shootings of modern times. The unarmed father-of-three was shot in the head and hand on a London street in September 1999 while walking home after a table leg he had in a bag was mistaken for a gun.

Chief Inspector Neil Sharman, 42, and PC Kevin Fagan, 38, firearms officers with the Metropolitan Police, were arrested in June this year on suspicion of murder, gross negligence, manslaughter and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and bailed in connection with the case. The arrests followed new forensic evidence that contradicted the officers’ accounts of the shooting and indicated that Mr Stanley was shot while facing away from the marksmen. The two officers told an inquest in 2004 that Mr Stanley had turned around “in a slow, deliberate, fluid motion” and pointed his wrapped-up table leg at PC Fagan, adopting a classic firing posture. This prompted Ch Insp Sharman to open fire, hitting Mr Stanley in the head.

A forensic scientist found that Mr Stanley had been shot in the rear side of his head – which indicated that he was not facing the officers at the point of impact. A bullet hole had also gone through the back of Mr Stanley’s jacket, through the shoulder, suggesting he had his back turned on the officers.

Mr Stanley was shot dead after someone telephoned the police and told them they had seen an Irishman with a sawn-off shotgun in a bag. Mr Stanley, who was originally from Lanarkshire, Scotland, was carrying a blue plastic bag with a coffee-table leg inside, which had been repaired by his brother.

The inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing, which was overturned in the High Court. The CPS, however, decided yesterday that there was ” insufficient evidence” to bring any charges against the officers. Two specialists, one hired by the Police Federation, the other by Surrey Police, the investigating force, said the forensic evidence did not prove that the officers were lying.

In a statement issued yesterday the CPS said there was not enough evidence to rebut the officers’ accounts that they were acting in self-defence. The CPS did, however, say it was “arguable that the officers’ haste and lack of planning led them to breach their duty of care to Mr Stanley and cause his death”.

After yesterday’s decision not to bring charges, the dead man’s widow promised to “keep fighting” for justice for her husband. Irene Stanley, who is consulting lawyers about a possible challenge to the CPS decision in the High Court and the European Court of Human Rights, said: “What happened today was an injustice. I am devastated by it, though I half expected it. I am going to keep fighting but can’t say more until I receive legal advice. I am also disgusted that I first heard of the CPS decision at 7.30am because of a leak to a tabloid newspaper.”

Ms Coles said public confidence in the criminal justice system would be severely undermined. She said it now appeared that British justice ” puts police officers above the law”. She added: “At a time when there is a massive increase of the number of armed police on our streets, it is imperative that the public have confidence in their ability to act professionally and safely.”

The 30 victims

JEAN CHARLES DE MENEZES, 27

Shot dead by police on 22 July 2005 after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.

PROSECUTIONS: Officers suspended until the investigation result is published.

PHILIP PROUT, 53

Shot by a police marksman after a baton gun failed to fire, in Cornwall in May 2004.

PROSECUTIONS: The CPS decided there was insufficient evidence to charge the officers.

DEREK BENNETT, 29

In July 2001, police shot him four times in the back in Brixton, south London. He had been holding a gun-shaped cigarette lighter to a man’s head.

PROSECUTIONS: CPS found insufficient evidence to prosecute.

JAMES ASHLEY, 39

Shot during a police drugs raid on his house in Sussex in 1998. Ashley was unarmed, naked and with his girlfriend.

PROSECUTIONS: Officer who fired the shot found not guilty of murder or manslaughter.

CRAIG KING, 32

Bouncer from Greater Manchester was shot by police on 11 September this year.

PROSECUTIONS: No officers have been charged.

JOHN SCOTT, 42

Killed in Northumberland in July after he fired a gun as police broke up a disturbance.

PROSECUTIONS: None

AZELLE RODNEY, 24

Shot in Edgware in April after bullets were fired into car of suspected drug dealers.

PROSECUTIONS: None

SIMON MURDEN, 26

Killed in Hull in March after brandishing a sword.

PROSECUTIONS: None

KEITH LARKINS, 33

Former mental patient shot in June at Heathrow after brandishing a blank pistol at police.

PROSECUTIONS: None

DAVID EWIN, 38

Former robber killed in London in March 1995 in a stolen car.

PROSECUTIONS: Officer tried and cleared of murder.

NICHOLAS PALMER, 23

Shot by police in south London in 2004. Failed to answer bail after arrest on arms offences.

PROSECUTIONS: None

COLIN O’CONNOR, 39

Thief shot in 2003 in Bedfordshire after being caught with a pistol in a stolen Jaguar.

PROSECUTION: None

FOSTA THOMPSON, 20

Jamaican shot in Bristol after defying police in 2002.

PROSECUTION: None

JASON GIFFORD, 27

Shot in 2002 in Aylesbury after he confronted officers with a sword and shotgun

PROSECUTION: None

MICHAEL MALSBURY, 62

shot in 2001 running out of his house in Harrow firing at police.

PROSECUTION: None

STEVEN DICKSON, 30

Shot in 2001 waving a home-made shotgun in Derbyshire.

PROSECUTION: None

ANDREW KERNAN, 37

Schizophrenic with sword shot in Liverpool in 2001.

PROSECUTION: None

PATRICK O’DONNELL, 19

Killed in 2000 after taking his mother and girlfriend hostage in north London.

PROSECUTION: None

KIRK DAVIES, 30

Former soldier was shot in West Yorkshire in September 2000 after he threatened an officer with an air rifle.

PROSECUTION: None

HARRY STANLEY, 46

Shot by police in 1999.

PROSECUTION: None

DEREK BATEMAN, 47

Shot in Surrey in 1999 after girlfriend told officers he was armed and was threatening to shoot her, or himself.

PROSECUTION: None

ANTONY KITTS, 20

Shot in Falmouth in 1999, threatening police with an air rifle thought to be a shotgun.

PROSECUTIONS: None

MICHAEL FITZGERALD, 32

Shot in Bedford in 1998 aiming a replica Colt 45 at police.

PROSECUTIONS: None

DAVID HOWELL, 41

Psychiatric patient shot in 1996 at a Co-op supermarket.

PROSECUTIONS: None

DIARMUID O’NEILL, 27

Unarmed IRA suspect shot in raid in west London.

PROSECUTIONS: None

JAMES BRADY, 21

Shot in 1995 in police ambush at village near Newcastle.

PROSECUTIONS: None

ROBERT DIXON, 45

Wild West fan fired at police, but gun may have been replica.

PROSECUTIONS: None

DAVID STONE, 35

Killed in 1993, carrying pistol in north London.

PROSECUTIONS: None

IAN HAY, 39

Mentally ill farmer shot in Devon in 1993 after police tried to investigate gunshot reports.

PROSECUTIONS: None

DAVID LUCKHURST, 46

Publican in Hertfordshire shot in 1993 after he fired rifle at officers in siege at home.

PROSECUTIONS: None

From Reporters Without Borders: “Reporters Without Borders has condemned the police violence to which at least 15 journalists were subjected while covering the three days of demonstrations in the capital that began on 5 May. Making no attempt to distinguish between protesters and media personnel, the police roughed up reporters, carried out arrests and confiscated or smashed equipment.

‘The use violence against journalists by the police in recent days is like a bad memory,’ Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said. ‘It is as if the old methods were back just four months after President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s fall. We urge the transitional government to investigate these incidents and to give the security forces clear orders to put a stop to such practices.’

Dozens of journalist took to the streets of Tunis yesterday in response to an appeal by the National Union of Tunisian Journalists to defend press freedom and prevent any return to the practices of the past. The union said the aim of the violence by the police was to prevent the media doing their job and deny the public’s right to information.

One of the worst cases of violence involved Abdelfattah Belaid, an Agence France-Presse correspondent and reporter for the French-language daily La Presse. Police chased him into the headquarters of his newspaper on 6 May, beat him over the head with a metal bar and seized his two cameras and laptop.

Radio Kalima reporter Marwa Rekik had to be hospitalized after being attacked and beaten over the head by police officers while covering a demonstration on the capital’s Bourguiba Avenue on 5 May.

Reuters photographer Zoubeir Souissi told Agence France-Presse that, after ordering him to stop take photos, police officers kicked and clubbed him repeatedly and one of them took his camera. He said he had to bribe the officer in order to recover his camera.”

The use of more advanced weaponry by the police on defenceless young protesters, on relatively small demonstrations, is ominous. It means that in advance of larger protests, and more widespread local protests against council cuts, the police are trying to make the use of violence in ‘public order’ policing politically acceptable.

Using dangerous chemical sprays on people’s eyes is not acceptable – and we must not let it become a normal part of political life for people to be hospitalised for taking part in a protest!

John McDonnell MP has tabled an Early Day Motion protesting against the use of CS gas on protesters. Anti-cuts campaigners should support it, and publicise it.

See the PDF of the Right to Resist Campaign’s little red book – a resource for activists with information on your rights, information about the campaign, and advice on what to do in custody or if you witness police violence on a demonstration.

Order a stack of these for your campaign group, student union or trade union branch – and distribute make sure everyone you know who is walking out or demonstrating this month has one. Contact us at right2resist@gmail.com for more details

We are indebted to our friends at the Green and Black Cross activist legal project for their help and advice.

Support Right to Resist by passing the following motion in your anti-cuts committee, Constituency Labour Party, trade union, trades council, student union, or campaign group. If you would like to invite a speaker from the campaign to your meeting, get in touch via right2resist@gmail.com or call 07843 945 005

Trade union branch model motion:
This branch notes
1. The vicious police response to recent student protests, including kettling thousands of protesters, many of them 16 or younger, in the freezing cold without access to food or toilets; pulling one protester from his wheelchair not once, but twice; and beating dozens of people, one so badly that he suffered a brain haemorrhage.

This branch believes
1. That this level of police violence has not been seen since the miners’ strike. As struggle against the Tory/Lib Dem cuts grows, however, police brutality and intimidation will grow too – unless we do something to stop it. This is an essential part of the fight against the cuts.

This branch resolves

1. To affiliate to the Right to Resist campaign against police violence and intimidation, and for the right to organise and protest, launched in December and supported by student activists and trade unionists from across the country. [Affiliation fees: organisations of less than 500 members, £20; more than 500, £50; more than 1,500, £100.]
2. To order … extra copies Right to Resist’s booklet for activists outlining your rights and how to deal with police intimidation and repression [Affiliates receive 50, 100 or 200 copies; extra copies are £10 for 100, £20 for 300, £40 for 800.]
3. To invite a R2R speaker to our next meeting.
4. To circulate information about the campaign to our members, and link to it from our branch website.

Student Union Model Motion:
We note
1. The vicious police response to student protests against fees and cuts, including kettling thousands of protesters, many of them 16 or younger, in the freezing cold without access to food or toilets; pulling Jody McIntyre from his wheelchair not once, but twice; and beating dozens of people, in the case of Alfie Meadows so badly that he suffered a brain haemorrhage.

We believe
1. That as struggle against the Tory/Lib Dem cuts grows, police brutality and intimidation, not just against students but against workers, will grow too – unless we do something to stop it. This is an essential part of the fight against the cuts.

We resolve
1. To affiliate to the Right to Resist campaign against police violence and intimidation, and for the right to organise and protest, launched in December and supported by student activists and trade unionists from across the country. [Affiliation fees: organisations of less than 500 members, £20; more than 500, £50; more than 1,500, £100.]
2. To order … extra copies Right to Resist’s booklet for activists outlining your rights and how to deal with police intimidation and repression [Affiliates receive 50, 100 or 200 copies; extra copies are £10 for 100, £20 for 300, £40 for 800.]
3. To invite a R2R speaker to our next meeting.
4. To circulate information about the campaign, and link to it from our website.

Vote for your campaign or union to support Right to Resist!

No punishments! We won't be intimidated!

We need to organise against these victimisations! Organise a petition among teachers and staff – get staff and teaching trade unions in your area to help you. Ask teachers to mark all students present on walkout days to prevent loss of EMA. Organise collections to support those most in need if they lose EMA through protesting. If anyone is disciplined or suspended – protest! Organise a petition, or a demonstration outside management’s offices. Put public pressure on the head to withdraw the punishment. An injury to one is an injury to all. The expulsion of one student should be everyone’s business – if you let management get away with it, you could be next!

If anyone in your campaign is being victimised by your school or college management for taking part in walkouts and protests, contact the Right to Resist campaign by emailing right2resist@gmail.com and we will help you fight against victimisations.

Students in the North East have organised an online petition on facebook in advance of the walkout on January 26, warning college managements not to punish protesters. Why not do the same?

See the facebook group here:

The text of their petition:

Open letter from Students Against Cuts to our headteachers:

Students Against Cuts have organised a walkout on Wednesday 26th January. In the past, some of our schools have tried to stop students and staff from attending and have punished those who took part. This will not be the case this time around. We refuse to be stopped from exercising our democratic right to protest.

We are protesting to save our education and defend our fut…ure. As the organisation that is supposedly educating us and preparing us for this future it is extremely hypocritical of you to oppose your defence against these cuts.

We have received a huge amount of support from many organisations and members of the public. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) have said teachers should not be preventing students from attending the walkout protests.

We demand that all students be allowed to walkout and that they will not be punished for doing something that they should be praised for. If you attempt to discipline us for taking part in the walkout we will refuse to accept the punishments. We will stand together and defend our right to protest, taking whatever action is necessary to prevent the victimisation of anyone who took part. All for one and one for all!

The Right to Resist campaign, backed by activists in the student movement and the trade unions, supports this petition (EDM 1257) – and we need your help to make it a success!

Contact your local MP and ask them to support EDM 1257 (the official name of the petition). Use theyworkforyou.com to find contact details for your MP. If they say no, or fob you off – organise a protest! Get other people to ring their office; deliver a petition; or picket their surgeries until they put their name to our campaign for the right to protest.

See the EDM here

Facebook group here

Here is the text of Katy Clark MP’s petition:

“That this House is concerned about the use of kettling as a police tactic against demonstrators in the United Kingdom; expresses serious concern that in recent demonstrations individuals, including minors, have been indiscriminately kettled by police for up to nine hours without food, appropriate facilities or access to medical assistance for those who require it and have been refused the right to leave; notes that a number of individuals have suffered very serious injuries, such as bleeding to the brain, as a result of police action during recent kettles; believes this kettling to be an infringement of the fundamental right to peaceful protest; and calls on the Government to take steps to stop this practice.”

Kettling is an attack on our democratic rights!

http://johannhari.com//2010/12/17/your-right-to-protest-in-under-threat

So now we know. When our politicians complained over the past few decades, in a low, sad tone, that our young people were “too apathetic” and “disengaged”, it was a lie. A great flaring re-engagement of the young has take place this year. With overwhelmingly peaceful tactics, they are demanding policies that are supported by the majority of the British people – and our rulers are trying to truncheon, kettle and intimidate them back into apathy.

Here’s one example of the intimidation of peaceful protest by the young that is happening all over Britain. Nicky Wishart is a 12-year-old self-described “maths geek” who lives in the heart of David Cameron’s constituency. He was gutted when he found out his youth club was being shut down as part of the cuts: there’s nowhere else to hang out in his village. He was particularly outraged when he discovered online that Cameron had said, before the election, that he was “committed” to keeping youth clubs open. So he did the right thing. He organized a totally peaceful protest on Facebook outside Cameron’s constituency surgery. A few days later, the police arrived at his school. They hauled him out of his lessons, told him the anti-terrorism squad was monitoring him and threatened him with arrest.

The message to Nicky Wishart and his generation is very clear: don’t get any fancy ideas about being an engaged citizen. Go back to your X-Box and X-Factor, and leave politics to the millionaires in charge.

This slow constriction of the right to protest has been happening for decades now. Under New Labour, protesters outside parliament started to have to ask permission and suddenly found themselves prosecuted for “anti-social behaviour.” In 2009, a man who had committed no violence or threats at all died after being attacked by a police officer on the streets of London at a protest – and nobody has ever been punished. Now the Metropolitan Police’s instinctive response to any group of protesters is to surround them and ‘kettle’ – that is, arbitrarily imprison – them for up to ten hours in the freezing cold, with no food, water, or toilets. It doesn’t matter how peaceful you were. You are trapped.

In the past few weeks police officers have been caught responding to a disabled young man with cerebral palsy – who was protesting because his 16 year old brother is now too scared of debt to go to university – by hauling him out of his wheelchair and throwing him to the ground. They even tried to block a severely injured protester in need of brain surgery from being treated at the nearest hospital, on the grounds that police officers were being treated there too and it was ‘upsetting’ to have injured protesters in the same place. Now Sir Paul Stephenson, head of the Met, says a total ban on protests by students is “one of the tactics we will look at.”

These protesters are not defying the will of the British people; they are expressing it. Look at their two great causes: opposing £27,000-a-degree fees for university students, and making the super-rich pay the £120bn they currently avoid in tax. Opponents of top-up fees outnumber supporters by 10 percent, while 77 percent of us support a massive crackdown on the people who live here but do not pay taxes here. This isn’t an attack on democracy, it’s a demand for it. It’s a refusal to be part of the silent majority any more. When politicians are defying the will of the people – and breaking the “solemn pledges” on which they took our votes – protest is necessary.

Of course, it is never justified in a democracy to launch violent attacks on people. Anybody who throws a fire extinguisher off a roof, or throws fire crackers and snooker balls at police officers, should be arrested and charged. It’s morally wrong, and tactically idiotic: it puts people off the protesters’ just cause. That’s why whenever it has happened, the protesters themselves have immediately turned on the violent fringe and made them stop. Yet the government is claiming that to deal with this tiny number of people – a few dozen – it’s necessary to restrict the basic rights to free assembly that have been won over centuries.

In reality, these tactics are provoking more violent protest than they prevent. It’s enraging to turn up to peacefully express your views outside parliament and find yourself suddenly imprisoned by police officers who won’t even let you go to the toilet. It doesn’t cool people down, it makes them burn up. There is an obvious alternative to kettling, and it was the norm in Britain until the Mayday protests of 2001 when the tactic was born. It’s simple: arrest anyone who commits an act of violence, instead of imposing mass imprisonment on everyone present. It’s called good policing.

Today, when I suggest to friends that they come to protest against a policy they passionately think will harm Britain, they have started to say something they never said before: I’m too frightened to go. For example, a group of disabled people I know is terrified by the government’s abolition of the Independent Living Allowance, which makes it possible for them to keep living in their own homes rather than an institution. The Sunday Telegraph quotes a government insider admitting “it is quite possible there will be cases of suicide” as a result. But after seeing how the police threw an obvious fragile and immobilized disabled man onto the street, they are too scared to protest outside Downing Street. They are forced to watch, helpless, while their support is taken away to pay for – as a Financial Times headline put it recently – Cameron and Osborne’s new “tax boost for wealthy heirs.”

There is a cost to this chilling of protest. Every British citizen is the beneficiary of a long line of protesters stretching back through the centuries. Every woman reading this can vote and open her own bank account and choose her own husband and have a career because protesters demanded it. Every worker gets at least £5.93 an hour, and paid holidays, and paid sick leave, because protesters demanded it. Every pensioner gets enough to survive because protesters demand it. What what your life would be like if all those protesters through all those years had been frightened into inactivity? If you block the right to protest, you block the path to progress. You are left instead at the whim of an elite, whose priority is tax cuts for themselves, paid for with spending cuts for the poor.

In Britain, we are not suffering from an excess of civil disobedience. We are suffering from an excess of civil obedience. Our government is pursuing dozens of policies we, the people, know to be immoral – from bombing civilians in Afghanistan to kicking away the ladder that lets hard-working poor children stay on at school. We aren’t wrong when we challenge these injustices. We are wrong when we stay silent. As Oscar Wilde said: “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.”

Tomorrow, there will be a continuation of some of the most valuable protests in Britain in years. A group of ordinary tax-payers have banded together on Twitter to form an alliance called UKUncut. They are campaigning against the fact that successive governments have allowed the super-rich to legally refuse to pay taxes. They operate on our streets, but pay nothing towards maintaining our society. So UK Uncut is peacefully shutting their shops until they are made to pay. The 99.99 percent of British people who pay our taxes will benefit as this cause swells and succeeds – we will face fewer cuts and a better Britain. It’s an example of a democratic citizenry acting in its own defence.

Now imagine living in a country where this didn’t happen. Imagine a Britain where a cabinet of millionaires could exempt the super-rich from tax while taking away the £30 a week that keeps hard-working poor kids at school – only for the streets to stay silent and supine. If we don’t defend our right to protest, we may well end up living on that cowed and chilly island.

* You can donate to the youth club Nicky Wishart was campaigning to save by sending cheques to: Eynsham Youth Centre, Back Lane, Eynsham, Oxon OX29 4QW

Taken from: http://savemdxphil.com/2010/12/15/open-letter-concerning-alfie-meadows-from-middlesex-students-and-staff/

We, current and former students and staff of Middlesex University, wish to make plain our disgust at the behaviour of the Metropolitan police at the demonstration against tuition fee rises in London on 9th December.

A Middlesex student, Alfie Meadows, sustained life-threatening injuries and underwent brain surgery as a result of an attack by the police. Protesters wishing to leave the demonstration had been told by police to exit via Whitehall, where many were then kettled and attacked. At around 6pm, the police launched a series of unprovoked charges, using horses, truncheons and shields on protesters trapped in Whitehall. Hundreds of peaceful protesters were lined up on the south side of Whitehall and witnessed these attacks.

Over the last month, we have been witness numerous times to police attacks on young protesters, many of school age, with nothing to defend themselves but their passion, anger and sense of injustice. The spectacle of brute, armed force marshalled against the young holds up an unflattering mirror to the society that condones it.

We would also like to draw attention to the disparity between the reportage and the images of Thursday’s protest. Television reporters relentlessly described the students as violent, while continually showing footage of police officers beating protesters. Do the broadcast media think that people are not intelligent enough to perceive the contradiction between what is said by reporters and what is shown via recorded images? The widespread and deliberate police provocation of protesters went largely unreported. It is also a mockery of justice to portray damage to a royal vehicle as having more importance than a potentially lethal assault by a police officer on an unarmed student.

Finally, we hope that the Government will now recognise that the problems its absurd approach to the funding of education are now generating are political problems, and cannot be resolved by the use of police force. If a Government seeks to rely on overwhelming force to maintain its position, then it will not take long for its legitimacy to crumble.

Zain Ahsan, BA student, Philosophy
Ali Alizadeh, PhD student and Visiting Lecturer, Philosophy
Éric Alliez, former Professor, Philosophy
Nisha Amin, MA student, Marketing
Tunç Aybak, Programme Leader, International Politics
Robin Bale, Phd student, Fine Art
Sarah Baker, Lecturer, Media and Cultural Studies
Julia Bard, Visiting Lecturer, Journalism
Richard Barry, Lecturer, Psychology
Anindya Bhattacharyya, former MA student, Philosophy
Richard Bornat, Emeritus Professor, Computing
Sarah Bradshaw, Principal Lecturer, Development Studies
Matthew Bury, Senior Lecturer, Design and Technology
Maggie Butt, Head of Media
Stephen Caldwell, BA student, Philosophy
Matthew Charles, Lecturer, Philosophy
Uracha Chatrakul Na Ayudhya, Lecturer, Business School
Cara Clancy, former MA student, Philosophy
Billy Clark, Senior Lecturer, English Language
John Coles, Programme Leader, Interior Architecture
Noyale Colin, PhD Student, Performing Arts
Katherine Corbett, BA student, Philosophy & MUSU Arts and Education Chair
Delia Cortese, Senior Lecturer, Religious Studies
Elizabeth Cotton, Senior Lecturer, Human Resource Management
Judith Cowan, PhD student, Fine Art
Olga Cretu, PhD student, Business School
Virginia Crisp, Lecturer, Media
Bojana Cvejic, former PhD Student, Philosophy
Anne Daguerre, Lecturer, Human Resource Management
Nadia Dalbani, BA student, Philosophy
Christina Delistathi, Senior Lecturer, Translation
Ferdinand Dennis, Lecturer, Creative and Media Writing
Karl Denson, BA student, Television Production
Mehmet Ali Dikerdem, Principal Learning Development Tutor, Institute for Work
Based Learning
Donna Edwards, BA student, Education and Philosophy
David Etherington, Principal Researcher, Department of Business and Management
Tom Eyers, former PhD student, Philosophy
Kate Fivash, BA student, Graphic Design
Vivienne Francis, Senior Lecturer, Journalism
Rory Gallagher, BA student, Fine Art
Nicola Goodchild, former BA student, Philosophy
Andrew Goffey, Senior Lecturer, Media, Culture and Communication
Raphaelle Gosden, BA student, Photography
John Grahl, Professor, Business School
Peter Hallward, former Professor, Philosophy
John Hammond, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics & Middlesex University UCU
Branch Secretary
Usama Hasan, Senior Lecturer, Business Information Systems
Sarah Hazell, BA student, Fine Art
Yaiza Hernández Velázquez, former PhD student, Philosophy
Dave Hill, Professor, Education
Johann Hoiby, BA student, Philosophy
Sian Howard, BA student, Fine Art
Elizabeth Lebas, Reader, Visual Culture
Aoife Macnamara, Director of Programmes, Fine Art
Manojkumar Iyer, President, Middlesex University Students’ Union (MUSU)
Gizem Zeynep İnceoglu, former MSc student, Business School
Irem Inceoglu, Research Assistant, Institute for Work Based Learning
Lucy Irving, Lecturer, Psychology
Ian Jakobi, former MA student, Philosophy
Charles Johnson, BA student, Music
Kieron Johnson, former BA student, Sonic Arts
Peter Kapos, former PhD student, Philosophy
Mark Kelly, Lecturer, Philosophy
Christian Kerslake, Senior Lecturer, Philosophy
Eleonore Kofman, Professor of Gender, Migration and Citizenship
Ben Little, Lecturer, Media and Cultural Studies
Jo Littler, Senior Lecturer, Media and Cultural Studies
Rachel Malik, Senior Lecturer, English Literary Studies
Andrew McGettigan, former PhD student, Philosophy
Farah Mendlesohn, Reader, Media
Whitney Mensah-Parker, BA student, Philosophy
Gregory Meredith, BA student, Philosophy
Kevin Morris, Deputy Director, Professional Development
Claudio Morrison, Senior Research Fellow, Human Resource Management
Kathleen Mullaniff, Senior Lecturer, Fine Art
Ozlem Onaran, Senior Lecturer, Economics and Statistics
Ngozi Onyejeli, Lecturer, Human Resource Management
Peter Osborne, former Professor, Philosophy
Dan Ozarow, PhD student, Business School
Rosa Nogués, former PhD student, Philosophy
Manuel Padovan, Chair of the School of Health and Social Sciences
Carola Palacios, Senior Lecturer, Theatre Arts
Constantina Papoulias, Senior Lecturer in Culture and Communication
Wesley Phillips, former PhD student, Philosophy
Keith Piper, Reader, Fine Art and Digital Media
Sebastiano Piva, BA student, Film, Video & Interactive Arts
Nina Power, former PhD student, Philosophy
Dáša Raimanová, BA student, Fine Art
Gianni Raineri, Senior Lecturer, New Media
Leena Robertson, Principal Lecturer, Education
Ian Roper, Principal Lecturer, Business School
Maria-Louise Rosbech, BA student, Philosophy
Stella Sandford, former Senior Lecturer, Philosophy
Nic Sandiland, Lecturer, Fine Art
Ian Saville, Visiting Lecturer, Theatre Arts
Tracy Sealey, BA student, Philosophy
Sylvia Shaw, Senior Lecturer, English Language
Edgar Schröder, Senior Lecturer, German
Javed Anjum Sheikh, MUSU Postgraduate and Research Students Officer
Kulwant Singh Sandhu, Senior Lecturer, Business Information Systems
Tamara Sivanandan, Head of Dept of Social Sciences
Matt Stern, BA student, Television Production
Vangeesa Sumanasekara, former BA student, Philosophy
Aaron Tan, former MA student, Philosophy
Hannah Tattersall, BA student, Philosophy
Spyros Themelis. Lecturer, Education
John Timberlake, Programme Leader, BA Fine Art
Demi Tofallis, former BA student, Primary Education
Pompilia Tudor, BA student, Journalism and Communication Studies
Jan Udris, Middlesex UCU Branch executive
Martin Upchurch, Professor of International Employment Relations, Business School
Hoi Yen Voong, BA student, Philosophy
Rebecca Walker, BA student, Dance
Josefine Wikström, former MA student, Philosophy
Rebecca Woodford-Smith, PhD student, Performing Arts
Sara Wright, Resources Officer, School of Health and Social Science

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