In July we will have a presentation about mutual forms of legal support organised via grassroots platforms, hearing about the London-based LDMG (coming out of the 1990s poll tax riots) and GBC (coming out of the 2010 student and anti-austerity protests). We’ll learn about legal observers on demonstrations, police station support and court monitoring and reflect on the roles of this kind of mutual care in social movements. These forms of support have taken on a great importance with recent mobilisations and arrests: in the UK student movements of 2010, many people were arrested and over 100 taken to court, and in the current moment of anti-austerity and anti-fascist protests in the UK, again many protesters are being criminalized. We’ll have some people from London over to tell us about this form of organising from their own experience.
Legal Defense and Monitoring Group (LDMG) http://ldmg.org.uk/
Green and Black Cross (GBC) http://greenandblackcross.org/
part of the Radical Collective Care Practices project:
http://radicalcollectivecare.blogspot.at/