Irish crew greets Dubya in London.

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Friday November 21, 2003 15:47

by Tim - Dubya welcoming committee

in London at the mo.

..

a small but vocal contingent of us travelled from Limerick, Cork and Kilkenny to London on Monday.
And we've done a lot of walking and stuff since.
Besides being invloved in the marches and attempting a direct action in Trafalgar Square we also staked out the American Ambassador's residence last night where George was having dinner with Lizzie Windsor.

There was oh... a million cops in bad humour... blocking the route.
Ironically they stopped us at the back of the neighbouring building - the London Central Mosque. (wonder what they think of their neighbour's banquet last night?)

We were physicaly pushed off the road by police who outnumbered us more than 10 to 1.
( the number of police on bush-watch duty is 14,000 - more than the entire Irish police force and more than the total number of british troops in Iraq)

I sneaked around the Mosque to check out the front of the residence which is in the posh Regent's park area.

The front gate was blocked and the bridge was covered in cops. the residence was flood lit.

I noticed that there is a canal through the park, with a small path - almost totaly unlit. thinking this was a way in i checked it out, and there, in the dark, eight dudes with machine guns in boats that hardly fit into the canal.

so we wait for bush to exit.

Two separate routes were to be cordoned off for this visit. and It was hard to tell which was the back up and which was the real route until the cavalcade got closer.
We walked down to marble arch and I noticed that the four lanes of traffic had to come to a halt as police motorbikes pulled across them.
Ordinary London traffic was stopped for ages at a green light, and we knew this was the route.

as we tried to cross the road, a very agitated policeman shouted at us and stopped us on the traffic Island and tried to corral us into a corner (which we resisted as we outnumbered the cops on the corner)

suddenly there appeared a few motorbikes and transit vans, followed by Lizzie Windsor in her royal limo. Quite a small cavalcade actually.

once they had passed the cops forced us back off the traffic Island. they continued to keep the traffic stopped so we knew Dubya wasn't far behind.

The cops treid to back us up further but some of us just waked down the street beyond him. We got followed so we could get across. That wouldn't have been a great idea anyway as the Gimp's convoy would simply speed up and turn on the windshield wipers as you bounce off the car.

Dubya's convoy was about three times as long as the Queen's -loads of transit vans of London cops, then the big black vans of the Secret Service, Dubya's Limo, another SS car and then the decoy limo, more SS vans, vans full of riot cops, and a bunch of minibuses of other staff (we could see the silhouettes of the people because of the Shop lights across the street)

We couldn't get across to him but we shouted and a cop even threatened arrest for blowing a horn at the limo.

Nice to see Bush visited a 'free country' eh?

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Comments (3 of 3)

we must help these people.

by ipsi facts and figures boy.

Sat Nov 22, 2003 13:54

but first the facts!

the Sluga surname accounts for 0.06% of the Ljubljana phonebook just ahead of Kulj and just behind Porenta.
[There are a little over 179.646 registered private phone lines in Ljublana]
Tomi rates as 0.04% in popularity of Slovenian first names, the most popular being Marija at 8.26%

George is not a popular first name in Slovenia where less than 0.002% of male children carry the name and there is only one Bush in the phone directory. [No relation].

Meanwhile in neighbouring Croatia the nationalists look set to romp home in the forthcoming elections.

Looks like Slovenia's still getting the hang of the Free Speech thing.

by Bernie

Sat Nov 22, 2003 06:43

Bit of an over reaction, we all want to kill Bush, it's the least we could do for the planet.

Sentenced For Sending Hate Mail To Bush

by pat c

Fri Nov 21, 2003 18:05

This is for real!

Protests Greet Sentence for Bush Hate Mail

LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Slovenian human rights activists on Friday condemned a court's decision to sentence a man for "terrorist" crimes for sending hate e-mail to President Bush (news - web sites).

Tomi Sluga, 29, told the local court in the northeastern town of Murska Sobota he was drunk and only joking when he sent an e-mail to the White House web before a June 2001 Bush visit to the small Alpine state.

"President, save the Earth, you ass, you will be killed in Ljubljana. Welcome!" the email read.

The court found Sluga guilty of "endangering a protected person" and gave him a two-year suspended sentence on Monday, the first conviction under Slovenia's new anti-terrorism laws.

Protesters from several rights group demonstrated outside the supreme court in Ljuljana, demanding Sluga's case be reconsidered.

"It is an exaggeration that has nothing to do with security," Gorazd Kovacic of the local Mirovni Institut (Peace Institute) told Reuters.

"We wanted to protest against the court's senseless decision to sentence a person for terrorism just for sending an e-mail," said Marta Gregorcic, a prominent rights activist who was among the three dozen demonstrators.

Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia in 1991 and is due to join the European Union in May.

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Irish crew greets Dubya in London.

Comments (3 of 3)