55. What really happened at the Bristol protests?
The Owen Jones Podcast
Owen Jones
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2021
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
As violence broke out at protests in Bristol against the repressive Policing Bill - with police vans burned and windows smashed - almost all media coverage has solely focused on the police's point of view. Today we redress that imbalance: both Louis and Saranya were amongst the protesters on Sunday and tell their side of the story, alleging police aggression and provocation - and they talk about a generation which has been stripped of security and hope.
They also talk about the real menace of a Policing Bill which grants the police powers to ban all peaceful protests - and which particularly targets Roma, Traveller and Gypsy communities.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks for joining. Please like the video and subscribe. The protest at Bristol have been the |
| 0:06.1 | focus of much media and political attention. And I suppose what's interesting? What's important, |
| 0:13.5 | I think, is this question of balance. The media often talks about balance, about sharing all |
| 0:19.4 | sides of a story. I think it is fair to say, whatever you think about what happened in Bristol, |
| 0:24.4 | that we've heard a lot about the police interpretation of what happened. And in a so-called democracy, |
| 0:31.8 | I think it's important that we hear all perspectives. And the perspectives that have been completely |
| 0:36.9 | missing from this discussion have been those of protesters themselves on the ground. We're |
| 0:42.8 | going to address the balance. That's what this is about today. So I'm very chuffed to be joined by |
| 0:47.7 | both Louis and Serranyah. Hello, both. Hi. Hi. Hello. So you're both in Bristol. So just tell me |
| 0:55.5 | first, whoever wants to kick off the discussion, tell me about the build up. Why you both went to the |
| 1:02.7 | protest? What was so important about the protest and why so many people turned up? Who wants to start? |
| 1:08.4 | Serranyah, why don't we start with you? Sure. I think so many people turned up for this protest because |
| 1:15.6 | obviously the build that's going through parliament right now is incredibly dangerous in terms |
| 1:21.3 | of taking away very basic rights and liberties of people, especially to peacefully protest. |
| 1:26.9 | And I think for a lot of people, this has taken the authoritarianism we've seen from the |
| 1:31.5 | total re-government over the past decades to a whole new level and they're really realizing |
| 1:36.2 | now that if we don't stand up in some way, we're going to be, you know, completely under the |
| 1:41.8 | hands of this government, there's no even going to allow us to protest peacefully. Sorry, sorry. |
| 1:53.2 | Catery here. I think obviously, especially in Bristol, we're a student city. There's a |
| 1:59.2 | lot of young people. A lot of us feel very strongly about this because, you know, we've grown up |
| 2:05.6 | under a general government. We've grown up in the wake of the financial crisis and we've had to |
| 2:10.3 | pick up the pieces of every situation that's been thrown at us and now we're picking up the |
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