Coverage of UK student protests on London Indymedia

London Indymedia has been playing a very important role in bringing to light police brutality against students protesting against cuts to student assistance and massive hikes in tertiary fees. Many of the people assaulted were in fact children. London Indymedia were among the first to reveal footage of police using a toxic fire extinguisher on the crowd and to show footage of police charging the crowd with horses - something they had publically denied.

Watching the indymedia footage and some footage from the Guardian website it was clear that the vibe at this demo was quite reminiscent of the S11 demo's in Melbourne in 2000. No marshals and the crowd and a great deal of spontaneity from the crowd as they were "kettled" for hours by police. Young people had impromptu dance parties with some property damage occuring. Most noticably a police van was damaged which had been mysteriously abandoned within the kettled area. Members of the crowd vigorously debated the pro's and con's of property damage and particularly young women debated with some of the more hot headed young men about the merits of smashing things up. All in all a very lifely event. Numerous occupations are also occurring on Universites around Britain as the NUS has lost control of the student movement after trying to shut it down after the trashing of the tories headquarters a few weeks ago by students.

London Indymedia

A street view of the protests from The Guardian