How to deal with the police
Rights of protesters and police powers often conflict on issues, such as whether the police:
- are using reasonable force
- can take and keep photos and footage of protesters
- can require protesters to provide their name, date of birth, address
- can lawfully search suspects
- can require protesters to go somewhere or do something, on pain of committing an offence if they do not
If you see an incident, to help yourself and others at a protest:
- note the place and time
- note the officers' numbers and details of other witnesses
- write down in detail what you saw, as soon as you can
- take photographs of what happened
- contact the protest's organisers and legal support
On arrest here are some basic rights. You have the right, at arrest and at a police station:
- to silence, for example, to say "no comment" to all questions
- to have someone notified that you are in a police station
- to read the police's "code of practice" (Code C) which lists all the rights of someone being held at a police station
- to free legal advice at the police station
- to an adult being with you if you are under 17, an interpreter if you do not speak English and to contact your embassy if you are a foreign national
For further information, please click on the links below:
This note was first published in the Morning Star on 25th March 2011, the day before the TUC anti-cuts demonstration in London