Youth Equality Coalition report brutal police response to Tyne Bridge blockade

In the early hours of 16 December, activist group Youth Equality Coalition (YEC) posted a statement to their Instagram page. It detailed the aftermath of a roadblock protest in which YEC have accused Northumbria police of having “violently assaulted” a child involved in the protest.

The protest was carried out in solidarity with eight members of the Filton 24 direct action group who are currently on hunger strike whilst in prison. Their basic rights – including the right to trial – are being denied to them.

YEC blockaded the Tyne bridge in Newcastle in order to raise awareness of the hunger strikers. They wore high-vis vests and keffiyehs, let off smoke canisters, and carried a banner reading “FREE THE HUNGER STRIKERS”.

Youth Equality Coalition speak out

However, YEC have reported that their protest met with brutality from the police. The statement itself began with the words “We are fucking furious”. It went on to explain that:

A child was violently assaulted by Northumbria Police. A child. Thrown into the back of a police car. Face slammed into the road. Dragged across the street in the rain. Forced into a soaking puddle like their body meant nothing. This was not policing. This was a violent assault on a child carried out by the state. This happened at a protest that blocked a highway in solidarity with hunger strikers. Hunger strikers the state is deliberately refusing to release. Hunger strikers the state is actively killing through slow, calculated neglect. When a government watches people starve and refuses to act, that is murder by policy. Free the hunger strikers now.

The government’s has held the anti-genocide prisoners in prison for more than a year without trial. Both parliamentary politicians and mainstream media like the BBC are currently holding a near-total silence on the topic of the hunger strike rather than address it.

Regarding the assault on yesterday’s protest, YEC’s statement goes on to state that:

This attack was targeted. It was racist. It was intentional. Police do not accidentally brutalise children. They choose who is disposable. They choose whose pain is acceptable. Northumbria police made that choice. This child was targeted for who they are and for standing in solidarity against state violence. You do not get to beat a child and hide behind uniforms, procedure and press statements. […] There is no legitimacy in a system that responds to hunger, protest and solidarity with fists, boots and cages.

‘Fuck the institution’

The statement ends with a powerful statement of rage and frustration at an unjust system:

Fuck Northumbria police. Fuck the institution that protects them. Fuck a state that criminalises protest and enforces suffering. We see this violence clearly and we will name it for what it is.

A child was assaulted. Hunger strikers are dying slowly. This is not justice. This is racist repression and state brutality.

This police response is sadly typical of this tool of the repressive state. The fact that yesterday’s protest was being carried out by children was no matter. An officer used force against a child because they saw a protest that must be stopped, not a youth crying out against injustice.

Featured image via Instagram/YEC