On Apr 24, 10:26*pm, "Richard J." wrote:
Offramp wrote on 23 April 2009 11:32:10 ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2...ri-lanka-tamil

"Tamil protesters clash with police

Thousands of protesters take to the streets of London to demonstrate
against the treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka"

I repeat, it is the police who close the streets.

That video shows the police trying to get people off the road; but
they keep jumping back in.
Why don't they protest at the Sri Lankan embassy?

It's been interesting reading this thread in Paris, where Tamil
protesters have also been active. *They tried a sit-in here last Monday
at a major road junction in the evening peak, then took to smashing
windows of buildings and buses after the police moved them off the road.
* In London you usually get a few arrests from this sort of thing, and
most of them get released without charge. *The press here in Paris
called it merely a "mini-riot", so I wasn't expecting to hear any more
about it.

But 210 were arrested, 147 of whom were still in custody ater 48 hours.
This morning (Friday), I read that 88 protesters had been charged; two
accused of deliberate violence towards the police would stand trial
immediately, a further 16 in June and 68 others in September; all of
them are banned from attending any demonstrations meanwhile. *I guess
that arrests on that scale would be defeated by the paperwork in Britain.

I think you'll find the paperwork in France, and indeed most developed
countries, is equivalent to the paperwork in .uk.

Interesting, though: clearly dark-skinned non-Frogs are subject to
harsher riot-related rules than the average homme-dans-la-rue.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org