Report on Police 'Torture' following arrest at G8

international | summit mobilisations | news report Sunday July 10, 2005 19:14 by A. via imc irl contact form

On the morning of the 5th of July I was on a cow-field near a section of the M9 (close to Stirling), where earlier a blockade had been dissolved when the police arrived.

About 10 am the police arrested me and about 16 others at the cow-field. We were made sit down and asked for our personal details and then searched. One by one we were brought to the police vans. We were photographed, searched again, and our personal belongings were put into plastic-bags. We were filmed during this.
Then I was informed that I was arrested for Breach of the peace. My hands got shackled on the back. I was put into a little police bus with a caged off section (about 2x3 m). There were 9 of us, all handcuffed on the back. One 17 year old boy, one 60 year old lady, and the rest of us in the 20ies. Our belongings were put into the bus and around 11 am the van left for Falkirk police station. When we arrived there the doors of the bus were opened for Air and we were left in the bus until 9 pm that evening.
We all had wet clothes and feet and it got cold. At 12 o’clock we were brought to the toilet one by one. The handcuffs were only opened for this short time at one hand.
An older policeman looked into the bus now and then. We asked for food and water and complained about the cold, so around 2 pm he closed one of the doors. And he told us that we will get water and our handcuffs would be checked. Last never happened.
Around 4 pm he brought us a little water, maybe a little cup each. That was the only thing they gave us from 10 am in the morning until 9 pm at night.
I asked to be brought to the toilet again, but we were told that there were no female officers available to bring us. After around 5 pm the male and female police officers we asked for help just turned away grinning.
One woman started to experience obvious agony to relief herself, but was ignored amongst touting and slagging by the cops. Around 6 pm that woman became increasingly desperate, and we decided to burn a tissue to get attention. The driver gave out to us about the fire and on the A/C. And left us there like before. The woman kept bagging to go to the toilet, but all police officers that heard her laughed and turned away again.
After asking and begging to go to the toilet for more than two hours the woman couldn’t hold on any longer and under tears relived herself inside the bus. We tried to console her, which was hard with our hand handcuffed on the back and told her, that it wasn’t her fault but the police’s.
At that stage my hands became pretty swollen. The police started making fun of the smell in the van, said we were like animals or remind them on dogs. They talked loud about us and laughed lot. Every time we asked for help, food, water, or to go to the toilet, they ignored us or smiled and turned out of our view. One female officer behaved in the same way when I asked her for help, cause my hands became seriously swollen. The officers went away and we stayed alone on the car park for a while. Around 9 pm the bus was moved to the backside of the police station and we were brought out for processing and put into cells.