Typical scenes from the thugs who call themselves the ‘English Defence League’
06 December | YouTube | Nachimir
05 December 2009 – At several points in this video, EDL leaders are visible trying to shore up their attempts at crafting a moderate image by suppressing vandalism and aggression, but they certainly have their work cut out for them.
I was in a group of photographers who had been near the bottom of Castle street waiting for the EDL march to come past. The police let us go up the street behind them, then enter the area they were loosely confining them to around the Robin Hood statue. A short while later, we were nearly kettled with the EDL for everything you can see in this video, but there was a minute or so when the police line dissolved and reformed two deep, so we managed to get all the way up the hill and on top of the wall outside the castle gatehouse.
After they’d been recorded trying to break police lines near the castle gates, with EDL leaders trying to calm down some of the guys who were being the most provocative to the police, some of the EDL started directing their attentions to us, with chants changing to “You can shove your f*cking cameras up your arse”. Two blokes started trying to pull down a lamp post, but were very quickly stopped by a guy in an EDL shirt. The crowd the EDL has attracted and the kind of public image of peaceful protest that they’re trying to craft with them is a fascinating contradiction.
Things could have been worse. A few of the crowd tried to intimidate us a bit, a few asked us if we were UAF or press, a few assumed we were UAF but seemed to be on their best behaviour, so it was just a bit of light verbal abuse rather than a beating. At least one photographer got pushed around a bit on Castle Street too, but as far as I’m aware nothing more serious happened around there. There was a fella with his face covered making sure to get snaps of all our faces too, probably for Redwatch. Those pesky commies, photographing people when they go out in public, eh?
