Friday, June 19, 2015

2015-06-18 UK: 30th anniversary of the miners strike's

2015-06-18 UK: 30th anniversary of the miners strike's
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The Battle of Orgreave is the name given to a confrontation between police and picketing miners at a British Steel coking plant in Orgreave, South Yorkshire, in 1984, during the UK miners' strike. In 1991, South Yorkshire Police were forced to pay out £500,000 to 39 miners who were arrested in the events at the Battle of Orgreave.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) organised a mass picket of Orgreave for 18 June 1984, with the intention of blockading the plant, and ideally forcing its temporary closure. Aware of the plans by means of MI5 infiltration, the police organised counter-measures.
The NUM was represented by 5,000 to 6,000 pickets from across the UK. The police deployed between 4,000 and 8,000 officers, and were deployed from 10 counties. Of these, a small number had been trained in new riot tactics following the Toxteth and Brixton riots, while most had little or no experience in dealing with such events. There were between 40 and 50 mounted police and 58 police dogs. There were no women officers and only a handful of female pickets.
Michael Mansfield QC described the evidence given by South Yorkshire Police as "the biggest frame-up ever". He said that the force had a culture of fabricating evidence, which was not corrected by the time of the Hillsborough disaster. After the 2012 report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, NUM leader Chris Kitchen called for the investigation into the force's practices to be widened to cover the Orgreave clashes.[3]
In October 2012, a BBC documentary aired into what happened at Orgreave. The programme revealed evidence that there was evidence that South Yorkshire Police had deliberately attempted to co-ordinate arrest statements in order to charge the miners with Riot. [4] Following the programme, South Yorkshire Police referred itself to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. [5] In June 2015, the IPCC announced that it would not launch a formal investigation into the events at Ogreave on the basis that too much time had passed. [6]
The Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign (OTJC) was formed in 2012 to campaign for a public enquiry into the policing of the events of 18th June 1984, following the success of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign[7][8][9]
On this day 31 years ago.
Orgreave 18th June 1984
She was only trying to help!
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