Finally today at the #SpyCopsInquiry, an opening statement from Matthew Ryder QC. He is representing anti-apartheid activists Ernest Rodker, Professor Jonathan Rosenhead & Lord Peter Hain, as well as Blair Peach's partner Celia Stubbs.
From the 1960s there was a large anti apartheid movement around the world. They were right, and their opponents were wrong. The British government appeased & supported a regime it should have opposed.
It should be a matter of deep regret that #spycops targeted anti apartheid campaigners. The real threat to democracy was apartheid itself.
The Anti Apartheid Movement (AAM) was formed in 1959 & not affiliated to any party. Peter Hain was in the Stop The Seventy Tour which campaigned against sporting tours by South African team.
Dambusters Mobilising Committee opposed the Cahora Bassa Dam in Mozambique, which would benefit South Africa. DMC was also targeted by spycops.
Spycops spied on anti apartheid groups well into the 70s, long after the Stop The Seventy Tour, while ignoring growing far right groups. This was partisan. Right wing violence & intimidation against anti apartheid groups was seen as a problem caused by the victims
Promoting racial equality was seen as a problem by spycops, while violence against them was seen as regrettable but understandable.
The first spycops infiltration of the National Front came by accident, when an officer infiltrating the Workers Revolutionary Party was asked by his unwitting targets to spy on the NF!
Spycops suffered 'mission creep', not just the 'ultra left' but anyone on the left, irrespective of whether they had anything to do with disorder. Any group was excusable as a stepping stone to someone that was more of genuine interest to police.
A 1974 report on a Special Branch/MI5 meeting records a complaint that SB think they collect a lot of info & do a lot of work with little feedback or idea if it's useful, but they keep doing it regardless.
The South African state security were active in London, targeting the ANC and Anti Apartheid Movement. Peter Hain had a letter bomb delivered in 1972, opened by his 14 year old sister. It seems uninvestigated.
Bombings and murders were committed against anti apartheid campaigners. Military materials were used. Few charges were ever brought. Some of these attacks were later admitted by South African agents.
The #spycops seem to have been wholly uninterested in pro apartheid violence. Instead, they obsessively collected information on a wide range of left wing groups.
The police lawyers said we needed historical context to understand the #spycops. Here it is.
Yesterday the police told the Inquiry said they would have behaved identically if a racist campaign had opposed a black sports team touring England. But supporting racism is not the same as opposing it.
This sounds a lot like the police 23 years ago telling the Macpherson Inquiry into the murder of #StephenLawrence that it had a colour-blind approach. It's as if they've learned nothing.
It's also a lie, given that there were active violent racist campaigners at the time and the #spycops left them alone. That now, today, they cannot see why this is wrong is highly regrettable.
The #spycops recorded extraordinary levels of detail. Ernest Rodker's family & medical details were reported & copied to MI5, as were reports about who was at Peter Hain's family home including his younger siblings.
This is what a totalitarian regime would do with dissidents. Parents reading secret police reports on their children is a chilling experience.
A 1975 report on Ernest Rodker names elected councillors and their choice of reading material. It was copied to MI5.
The Labour Party conference was reported on by #spycops. Peter Hain asks if the Liberal and Conservative conferences were ever spied upon.
If, as is plausible, this information was passed by MI5 to their South African counterparts, it's the very opposite of protecting the public.
The Stop The Seventy Tour was not 'subversive'. #Spycops officer Mike Ferguson had a key organisational role in the group. He went on to hold senior positions in the spycops unit, recruiting & advising new officers. It seems his work was viewed as a good example.
The excuses for targeting anti apartheid groups need debunking. Contrary to the police version, violence was never an aim or method. Contemporaneous documentation proves it. It wasn't secret or revolutionary, it simply opposed the cruel racist South African regime.
Spycops infiltrator Mike Ferguson's reports don't suggest any violence at any time. Officer Dick Epps says at one demo people were told to attack police. This is untrue & emphatically denied.
The arrest & prosecution of #spycops officer 'Michael Scott' art the 'Star & Garter demonstration' shows how spycops eroded the judicial process.
The SDS #spycops manual from 1995 specifically says that they may disregard the rules about not lying to courts https://www.ucpi.org.uk/publications/sds-tradecraft-manual/ [credited author is spycop Andy Coles, now a Tory councillor, see @sackandycoles]
On 12 May 1972 at the Star & Garter in Richmond, when activists blockaded a coach taking rugby players going to the airport to go to tour South Africa. One of those arrested & convicted was #spycops officer Mike Scott
Scott was using the stolen identity of a man who was still alive. Scott was also a police spy in communications between lawyers & defendants, a breach of privacy. He swore to tell the truth to court but, from the first question about his name, he lied to court.
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