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London Riots Not a Surprise: A Festival of the Oppressed

August 13
23:09 2011
My friend Marlin brought back from the London riots a pastry box containing the Queen’s head for a reason.Alexander Cockburn puts into perspective the chaos that ignited after London police shot a young black man in one of the city’s most impoverished districts:

Stuart Bannocks

The riots in London last week started in Tottenham in an area with the highest unemployment in London, in response to the police shooting a young black man, in a country where black people are 26 times more likely to stopped and searched by the cops than whites. Stop-and-searches are allowed under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, introduced to deal with football hooligans. It allows police to search anyone in a designated area without specific grounds for suspicion. Use of Section 60 has risen more than 300 per cent  between 2005 and last year. In 1997/98 there were 7,970 stop-and-searches, increasing to 53,250 in 2007/08 and 149,955 in 2008/09. Between 2005/06 and 2008/09 the number of Section 60 searches of black people rose by more than 650 per cent.

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