Imagine a country ...

... where someone gets killed by the police every week [1]. At the same time, at least 10 more people die an untimely death in state custody [2]. Week after week, month after month, decade after decade. And not a single copper, goaler or doctor gets sentenced. Not even for unlawful killing, negligence or anything. Not once [3].

On top, since most of the victims were poor, living in bad areas or just black, pretty nobody gave a flying fuck anyway. Year after year, the bereaved gathered for a silent procession followed by noisy protest in front of the prime minister's offices [4]. Since every year there were more bereaved than the year before, the protests kept on growing.

However, as usual no one else came ...

...

The UK has probably the grimmest death in custody toll of all Europe. According to official figures, every year about 600 people die in state custody. And everytime afterwards, the bereaved are just getting fucked over again.

Think about it.

[1] http://inquest.gn.apc.org/data_deaths_in_police_custody.html Official figures. However, the total count per year you have to add yourself ...
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7005556.stm Different official figures (see chart at bottom). Now that's more convenient, innit? And also I'd say that charts looks more impressive. Police Custody figures pretty lower, though.
[3] http://www.injusticefilm.co.uk
[4] http://www.4wardever.org/uffcannualrally

Last year's uk.indy feature 2006:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/357852.html

Think again.

This year's flyer. Click to enlarge.

The above is a piece I originally published on uk.indymedia (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/384167.html?c=on). Since this year the anarchist bookfair changed its traditional date and now is on the same saturday as the march (oviously oblivious of the march taking place on the last sat in oct for 9 years now), there were some well, at least partly a bit dubious comments, which make me once again wonder if so little 'radical' people would attend the annual march (or even know about it) if it was organised and led by white middleclass activists instead of people of colour ...

Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad

All pics © Baby 2007 -- click 'em to enlarge!

Am afraid I'm constantly doing the wrong thing. Like e.g. going up the hills hiking with baby for 3 cloudy days, instead of working straight through my entire two weeks 'holiday', trying to catch up on some of them projects I'm still waaaay behind with. Not to mention adding another 2 days when learning that eventually there'd be some sun for a change (which was why I wanted to go there in the first place, now that the surgery-scars are healed up enough to allow me getting some for the first time in almost two years). Of course took the laptop with me, incl. plenty work and all the best intentions, but in the end did squat (well, except ongoing correspondence, processing book orders and other impossible-to-be-postponed-at-all everyday stuff).

Of course didn't help me catching up on anything I should've finished about the year before last year, and I've got some really hard deadlines coming up book-projects wise. And after the 'holiday' the new semester kicking in real hard, plus the callcenter-job, and of course my obligations to the dole office (though at the mo with regards to the ladder, let's just say hope the person responsible for my file there doesn't read this ...).

However, despite working on everything as hard as I can for the last 6 weeks, still don't get far. Actually already have a bad conscience when e.g. sleeping for twelve hours for a change like last night, though over the last week still doesn't add up to more than probly 7 hours per day. Not to mention the GP telling me my stomach problem though still being far from an actual ulcer, that's clearly the direction I'm headed, and even if I did a total U-turn immediately, still can take 6 months to lose my symptoms. Well, nutrition-wise deftly complied at least 98%, i.e. skipping everything that's preprocessed, plus generally supper. So stomach's better now, but I'm starting to loose weight fast, already shed more than 5 kilos, and not the fat of course. Though working out, fat chance of fitting that into the schedule somehow anyway ...

Still like a lot the pics baby made during these 5 days (somehow from above even ugly LA-type smog can look good), so couldn't resist uploading some in chronological order, hoping y'all are gonna like 'em too ...

All pics © Baby 2007 -- click 'em to enlarge!