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G8 Summit 2005

2007-01-06

The Clown Army managed to create quite an impression in Scotland during the G8 Summit and provided numerous great photo opportunities. One photo by Kenny Mathieson, titled Optimism gained first prize in a competition and was exhibited in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

2006-01-09

Shut Them Down! is an essential collection of reflections on the movement against the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. As well as action stories from the frontlines of resistance to the summit, there are detailed accounts of how various aspects of the mobilisation were organised, and analysis of the lessons to be learned.

2005-11-28

Murdo MacLeod has written a piece which appeared on scotsman.com - Police promise more arrests as pursuit of G8 rioters goes on. The article finishes by mentioning that Scottish and Russian police representatives have already held talks about policing G8 2006.

2005-09-24

Alex Trocchi, Giles Redwolf and Petrus Alamire have put together a report on the 2005 G8 mobilisation from an Anarchist perspective. It has just been posted on Indymedia in two parts. Here is Reinventing Dissent: G8 2005 Part 1.

2005-08-02

The G8 Legal Support Group are supporting all G8 prisoners and defendants.

2005-07-20

In the end my involvement with anti-G8 protests was almost entirely through the G8 Bike Ride. During the protests our main base of operations was in the rural convergence space at Stirling where we set up camp in the Lancaster neighbourhood/barrio.

I was stopped and searched twice while in Scotland. The first time was on 2005-07-06 at 12:45 while cycling north-east on the A9 with a group of four riders, somewhere between Dunblane and Auchterarder. PC 286 FH of the Met told me that the whole of Scotland was under a Section 60, which gave him the right to search me. I gave him my name and address when asked (though I now realise I was not technically required to do so) and he seemed impressed when I mentioned that I had cycled up from London. I asked for a record of the search but he said he had no forms and that I should just take down his number and note the time. After the search all four of us were allowed to continue on our way towards Gleneagles. The second time was when I left the Stirling campsite two days later but this time it was rather half-hearted since I had two packed panniers and a heavily laden trailer which would have taken ages to go through properly. I was again asked for personal information which I gave to avoid delay.

For general information about the summit including sections on "Activism" and "Security and police actions" see 31st G8 summit from Wikipedia. For information more specifically about anti-G8 actions check out UK Indymedia coverage.

Mainstream coverage of protest activity was dominated by the Geldof/MPH/Live8 extravaganza which seemed to have the full backing of Tony Blair and was therefore not really a protest at all. Here are some critical views:

At the opposite end of the spectrum was the "The Suicide March" in which a group of up to 1000 people left the Stirling campsite on foot at 03:00 on July 6th and battled their way through five police lines to eventually reach and successfully blockade the M9. When I cycled across the bridge at junction 10 sometime around noon the motorway was deserted except for a line of riot vans just north of the junction blocking all lanes in both directions. The blockade was somewhere to the south but was not visible from the bridge. Here is a first hand account of the action.

2005-05-25

The cost of hosting the G8 summit is spiralling towards £200 million - five times the anticipated cost.

2005-05-11

Check out Days of Dissent for reflections on past summit mobilisations.

Corporate Watch have done a Special Report for the G8 Summit.

The Dissent! Network of Resistance against the G8 are having a gathering at Sumac in Nottingham for three days, starting on 2005-05-20.

2005-04-17

Times Online has an article by Adam Luck who looks "Inside the secret world of anarchists preparing for G8 summit". Come on Adam, couldn't you manage to make it a tad more sensationalist:-)

2005-03-03

Check out this Anti-G8 timeline

2005-03-02

There is a new G8 mainstream media coverage section on the PGA website.

2005-02-13

The 3rd Dissent Newsletter Winter 2005 edition is now available.

2005-02-03

Nelson Mandela has urged world leaders not to "look the other way" from poverty during a mass rally in London. This is going to be one of the big issues at the Gleneagles summit.

The Scotsman recently ran this article about the likely scale of the security operation planned for Edinburgh in July.

Dragon Environmental Network have got a pretty good G8 section on their website.

2005-01-11

In the wake of the European Social Forum it seems that Gill Hubbard (G8 Alternatives/GR Scotland/SWP) has been responsible for spreading some rather outrageous misinformation. I know this is old news but I have not mentioned it before and it is important to be aware of this sort of thing. For details see UK Indymedia - GR Scotland tries to capitalise on disruption.

2005-01-10

Children as young as eight living near Gleneagles will be issued with identity cards as part of the massive security operation planned for the summit.

2004-12-15

For anyone in Ireland, BLUE are keen to get involved with G8 stuff and are willing to act as an infopoint.

2004-11-16

The Dissent! network will have a stall and workshop at the Anarchist Bookfair on 2004-11-27. This will be an excellent opportunity to meet people and exchange ideas.

The Peoples' Golfing Association plan to hold a People's Open Golfing Tournament on the sumptuous greens of Gleneagles during the G8 schmooze-fest.

On 2005-11-20 there will be a Dissent! benefit event at Club 85 in Hitchin featuring Freudstein, Dot Hardcore, Autofire etc. Nice to know that there is stuff going on in Hertfordshire.

2004-11-05

Yesterday I registered an account at libcom.org so that I could join the discussions going on in the Resist G8 2005 Forum. Looking through some of the recent comments I was dismayed by the Pythonesque factionalism (Brian: "Excuse me. Are you the Judean People's Front? Reg: Fuck off! We're the People's Front of Judea). Unfortunately it can't be dismissed that easily because there do seem to be some genuine differences of opinion, but there is also a lot of energy being directed in a positive way.

It seems like Scottish CND are going to be playing a big part in the anti-G8 mobilisation, and together with Trident Ploughshares they have made a commitment to organise a "Big Blockade" of Faslane base on 2004-07-04.

Another group that seems cool are those who came together for The Big Blether 4 at the beginning of October in Culdees, Perthshire.

www.zenatode.org.uk Ian Gregory 2010