Reclaim Your Rights - The Disorganised Collective

Saturday 18th September 2004 Reclaim The Streets, Princes Avenue Hull Photograph Gallery   Gallery 1   Gallery 2

Around a 100 people gathered in Pearson Park on Saturday (18th September), for a Reclaim the Streets protest. Unfortunately around only 30 of those people were protestors, the rest of the numbers were made up by the police. Now there are a number of reasons why the ratio between protestors and police was so far in favour of the police. Among those suggested was anything from the posters we put up being too hardcore in appearance, with the supposedly ominous skull 'n' cross-bones, or the weather was a little cold and it was threatening rain.

Other reasons put forward were the simple apathy of people in Hull, and that people are uneducated as to what Reclaim the Streets is all about. Now I'm leaning towards the idea that most people are spineless selfish fuckers, but that's just my opinion. Facts emerging are that we now have eye witnesses who saw council workmen out and about putting up CANCELLED posters all over the city.

Now let's get this right here. We accept that the City Council are anti-fly-poster. However they didn't go around CANCELLING the giant night club events that get put up every week. In fact the only one they CANCELLED was Reclaim the Streets!

DISCRIMINATION is what that is, pure and simple. What ever happened to FREEDOM OF SPEECH? The right to PEACEFUL PROTEST?? It seems that it is alright for corporate night club chains to spend a fortune sticking up giant fly-posters all over the city, but not for community activists to come along and use the only method of advertising they can afford, to advertise an important community issue. An issue that the City Council ignored.

The fact that the week of the Reclaim the Streets was European Mobility Week, and Hull was one of the only major cities in the country not having an event. So we as community activists did it ourselves, grassroots action, can't trust the council useless bastards, and all that!

Now I'm going to stop ranting, as it just makes me more angry. Can I just point out one thing, that Hull City Council's way of dealing with fly-posting is to stick up more! In fact more than Reclaim the Streets did as a group. They did this all in one night, they were all over the place. That seems just a little stupid if you ask me. What do you think?

Saturday 18th September 2004 Reclaim The Streets, Princes Avenue Hull Photograph Gallery   Gallery 1   Gallery 2

Photographs courtsey and Copyright © Mo thisisUll.com

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