Manchester policing: Traveller Lives Matter rally outside Parliament
Ahead of the main rally planned for Manchester on December 6th, Traveller Lives Matter campaigners gathered outside Parliament last Saturday to protest against the recent brutal policing of Traveller children in Manchester on Saturday 23rd November.
Manchester Police were accused of racial profiling and brutality after indiscriminately barring Traveller young people and children from shopping centres, and "herding" them back onto trains at mainline Manchester stations.
The rally was called for by Irish Traveller Laura Angela Collins, who emphasised the importance of standing up against an ongoing pattern of abuse against the UK’s Romany Gypsy and Irish/Scottish Traveller communities.
“We are demanding accountability for a systemic problem of discrimination and police violence against our communities,” said Collins.
“We are calling for a full investigation into these abuses and immediate changes to ensure our communities are treated with dignity, respect, and equality,” Collins added.
The Gypsy Traveller League and the family and friends of Michael McDonagh – a father of six killed by security staff at a Park Deans resort in Camber Sands, Sussex – were among the people who went.
Travellers’ Times photographer, Esther Halasi, was there to record the event.
MANCHESTER UPDATE:
• A peaceful rally planned by the Gypsy Traveller League for Manchester on Friday, December 6th, gathers pace as the organisers go by the book and apply to Manchester Council to hold the rally to give the police no excuse to ban it and then use another dispersal order – like the one they used to clear Manchester City Centre of Gypsy and Traveller young people on Saturday 23rd. The Travellers’ Times has seen a copy of the application to hold a rally with the time, place and route – but will not release further details until the organisers are ready to do so, other than to say it will be in Manchester City Centre.
• Paddy Doherty is urging everyone from the Gypsy and Traveller community to go - and will be there himself.
• The Greater Manchester Police have replied to a letter sent to them by a plethora of Gypsy and Traveller charities. The reply is exactly the same as the reply to other grass-roots campaigners who wrote to the police, and the Manchester Police have dug their heels in and have not given an apology.
• The Traveller Movement have engaged a top law firm to explore the option of suing the police through the civil courts.
TT News
(All photos by Esther Halasi for the Travellers' Times)