Babylon outside the borders agency
On the 2nd of September, at 12pm around 50 people gathered outside the Cardiff Home Office Buildings for the noise demo planned as part of the Stop NATO Cymru week of action.
In the past, there have been monthly noise demos by No Borders South Wales group, with many different points of focus, ID cards, destitution, dawn-raids and anti-deportation. The focus of this particular demo was how border controls relate to militarism and the NATO war machine
This was called because NATO are part of the samesystem that divides and isolates through borders. Borders are a mechanism for the divide and rule of working class people. Borders kill innocent people around the world as does militarism.
The sound system fired up with revolutionary tunes blasting, people were making sounds with all the tools at their disposal, including lamp-posts and sauce pans. People were engaged as they passed, waving from buses, cars beeping, and people stopping to find out what we were calling for and why we were taking the action. There seemed to be an air of appreciation towards it that a group would undertake the action with 9,500 police currently in the area for the NATO summit.
This noise demo shut down UKBA for the day, asylum seekers arriving to sign were told to come back another time, one said to the protestors “Can you do this every day?”.
FIT (Forward Intelligence Team) thought they were in a good position on top of a wall over the road to gather intelligence on those present but their camera soon got targeted with big posters that covered up their lenses.
There was a spontaneous march to Cardiff prison where the noise demo continued, messages of solidarity were called to the prisoners as prison officers gathered outside the front but made no attempt to intervene.
There were several arrests that day. One man was arrested for walking too close to the Home Office building with a handle-les saucepan, the charges against him were changed three times before he went to his plea hearing.Of the 4 arrested at that demo currently there are only two court cases ongoing, the other two has been withdrawn. If you are available to support these individuals in court email stopnatocymru@riseup.net.
There will be another demo soon as No Borders South Wales continues the struggle for freedom of movement, justice and equality for all.
