I have been a British activist for 51 years.
I have a lifetime of experiences that I could discuss here.
First I will give you a brief appraisal of how Britain deals with dissent.
In Britain, protesters or political dissidents have always been suppressed
as the established stiff upper lip works hard to control our image in the world.
Hence, we don’t read about anything that might damage our reputation in our controlled and corrupted media.
That would blow the lid off the safe red, white and blue, very British bubble that cushions you from reality.
Many MANY thousands of protesters, from anti Vietnam war rallies of the 1960s, to the Poll Tax riots, to Greenham Common, the Animal Liberation Front, Stop the City and many more campaigns witnessed their members suddenly picked up by police, spirited away and sectioned under the loosely defined Mental Health Act.
Subsequently they were incarcerated in secure locations and chemically coshed.
Many of these brave and dedicated people never recovered their former exuberance.
Many died or became lifelong drug addicts, hooked on the state approved pharmaceuticals.
I am always baffled by the fact that so many British people
go about their lives completely oblivious of this sinister underbelly in Britain.
I find myself asking:
“Do you remember the Bean Field?” and I invariably launch into a brief reminder of how, in 1985, Thatcher’s policies dealt with the free festivals at Stonehenge when they had become too big for establishment comfort.
The convoy of live-in vehicles travelling to the festival was suddenly corralled into a field by overwhelming numbers of police.
It was smashed up, the dogs were shot, the kids were taken into care and the adults were arrested.
Quietly, behind closed doors many of them were declared mentally ill and locked up in institutions without trial.
Many committed suicide.
Their lives destroyed.
These are the harsh realities of how we are treated if we defy the British government
and it is time that everyone knew this.
Now let’s look at a recent event:
On the 15th of October 2018 a young activist, Sadie Love was briefly featured in the media
because she was one of many who are protesting against fracking in Lancashire.
She gave journalists her reasons for defending against the #FrackersCuadrilla UK.
She was clear & articulate.
She said she was locked into a tube of concrete, inside tyres
because she wanted local parents to feel that their kids are safe in Lancashire.
Here is a live-streamed video, shot by a fellow campaigner, of Sadie talking to the journalists that day.
The police cut Sadie and her companion out from their device and arrested them later that same day.
What transpired at the police station is unclear but Sadie says that she was put into a cell and fell asleep exhausted.
She was woken around midnight and taken to a local hospital, closely followed by her friends who had been waiting for her to be released. Other arrestees had been released much earlier and she was the last to be dealt with.
Sadie discovered that she was being sectioned under the Mental Health Act and she was suddenly bundled out of a back door to a waiting ambulance.
Her friends could hear her screaming in defiance and tried to intervene, but they were restrained by a huge number of police officers and eventually the ambulance drove Sadie away, leaving her friends distraught and powerless.
As you can see from the video I have shared above, Sadie is not mentally ill.
This was a POLITICAL ABDUCTION.
Sadie’s friends were not about to give up and leave her at the mercy of the state.
They found out where she had been accommodated and shared the information among the many concerned campaigners. Efforts to contact Sadie’s family were successful and the following day Sadie was seen by a few friends and a solicitor. Worryingly, Sadie had been administered drugs against her will.
It was clear, from all their reports that Sadie was calm and had not suffered a sudden episode of psychosis.
There was no sign of mental illness and everyone was baffled.
Why had the police done this? Why had they singled out Sadie?
Meanwhile, online some of the activists were filling twitter and facebook with posts as they expressed their rage.
One of which was shared over 6,000 times on facebook, mirrored by an online media outfit and finally inspired a support group to be set up.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/284543269058097/
The solicitor who attended Sadie demanded to see the paperwork and found it to be incomplete.
An urgent review of the case was requested and early the following morning Sadie passed an assessment without difficulty. She was released from the institution immediately and collected by her very relieved and close friends.
Sadie has returned to the fold and does not intend to let this nasty experience just sail by without challenging the motives for her humiliation and brief sectioning under the Mental Health Act.
The support from all around the world, generated by a few facebook posts and tweets, has been impressive.
However, we have noticed a large number of health professionals disputing that this could have happened.
They go on to explain the protocol and seem baffled that a bed could have been found for Sadie when their experience tells them that severe and genuine cases are seldom admitted to hospital unless the patient is in danger of self-harming or is a danger to others.
Sadie was displaying no sign of mental illness.
What shocks them the most is that the police have misused their powers of arrest in this way.
What shocks us, Sadie’s friends, is the fact that health professionals seem oblivious of this method being used against protesters and dissidents.
There is clearly a disconnect going on here.
We are concerned to know if other protesters are languishing in our mental institutions right now with nobody fighting for their rights. We are aware of two other recent cases where activists have been subjected to similar treatment and forced medication.
Sadie was #PoliticallyAbducted and she was not the first by any means.
Thousands of people have fallen foul of the misuse of law.
Our campaign #WeSaidNo is not just about fracking any more.
It is about human rights, dignity and morals.
Something that UK Protectors have in spades.
But our government has dispensed with in their undemocratic forceful desire to #Frack – whatever the cost.
If you are interested in following or joining the Anti-Fracking campaign in Britain please come and join our group:
Frances Leader
