Finally today at the #SpyCopsInquiry, Donal O'Driscoll @PeterSalmon7.
O'Driscoll: Victims of spycops are here despite the trauma. People were abused, democracy was attacked by spycops, yet we're told they need protecting & must have anonymity.The Inquiry has priotised the wants of abusers
O'Driscoll: I've seen spycops files full of lies. They have also covered the tracks. you need the victims to get the truth. The officers were trained to lie, to ask the right question needs our knowledge.
O@Driscoll: I grew up in Northern Ireland with troops pointing guns at us on the way to school. We learned how state agents act & what they do to cover up the truth
O'Driscoll: In 1998 I was pushed under a car by a police officer during a demo. For months I was targeted by police for increased attention which furthered the trauma. I now believe spycop Christine Green would have been around for that.
O'Driscoll: In 2005 I was involved in organising the protest camp during the G8 summit at which there were multiple undercovers, a number who I knew personally. The intense police harassment there resulted in a chronic illness which will remain with me for the rest of my life.
O'Driscoll: Throughout the 2000s I was involved in preventing civil injunctions being brought to undermine the right to protest. Not only were spycops units active around this, they were covertly as well, including one corporate spy known to pass material to the police.
O'Driscoll: in 2007, while negotiating in one such injunction, it turns out that myself and another core participant were not talking to Novartis, but to undercover police. I was arrested for conspiracy to blackmail as a direct result of this (the charges were dropped)
O'Driscoll: I was put on The Consulting Association blacklist and experienced the impact of that, having job offers withdrawn. I wantto know what role spycops played in this, or the degree to which info ended up being passed to corporate intelligence firms.
O'Driscoll: as an animal rights activist, environmentalist, anarchist &anti-fascist, I remain proud of all I have been involved in and remain committed to those issues. I regret very little. I am sure the state will happily label me a criminal, but that does not bother me.
O'Driscoll: I've always fought for & been motivated by a sense of justice. It is the core of who I am - one does not stand idly by in the face of cruelty or oppression. Positive change comes only through people seeking to stand up to abuse by the powerful.
O'Driscoll: I don't accept such criticism from a state that is prepared to give its agents unchecked powers to abuse, rape, even murder, and will cover up for them. Whatever I have done that some might find disagreeable, I have done nothing compared to what the police have.
O'Driscoll: In Octr 2010 I was among the first to get the phone call, from a friend, that Mark Stone was in fact the spycop Mark Kennedy. I had considered Mark a friend, I was asked to let others close to him know.
O'Driscoll: Over the next few months I watched the pain & tears, my good friends and colleagues broken by the fact. I knew a good number of the women who he had relationships with, and could only try to console them as they processed that horror.
O'Driscoll: As a researcher with @UndercoverNet I have spoken to over 150 people about all of this, from all forms of protest movements. I, probably better than anyone else, know how far and deep the emotional scars of this scandal go.
O'Driscoll: Campaigning ishard enough, causing burnout and trauma in itself, without knowing there are spycops working alongside you to directly undermine all you are seeking to achieve.
O'Driscoll: it's apparent that police had access to medical records and were willing to use them to facilitate access to people. They were close to people who were suffering serious medical trauma and inserting themselves in their lives and care.
o'Driscoll: spycops were involved in lives of children of activists. I've listened to parents tell of guilt they feel that they left their loved one in the care of people who didn’t really exist, the doubt that develops around their judgement & anger for those that sanctioned it
O'Driscoll: I’m also very aware of how much spycops impacted those children, some having to live with parents processing the trauma, others damaged by the knowledge that someone they thought was a friend who could be depended on was an entire lie.
O'Driscoll: spycops units weren't 'out of control' or 'rogue'. They were known at the highest levels their activities condoned. Some went on to senior management roles, proving knowledge permeated the police. We want the truth, inc about wilful blindness to their abuses.
O'Driscoll: police will want to focus on alleged criminality of some protestors as a kind of justification. But these units were ideologically motivated, had little care or interest in the human rights of those they targeted, & were individually & systemically racist & sexist.
O'Driscoll: spycops weren't sent to tackle alleged criminality of one or two people, but targeted communities for seeking to exercise their rights to protest, to seek positive social change. In doing so, they criminalised whole communities, which then became the justification
O'Driscoll: justifications of #spycops actions as “collateral intrusion” have no place in this Inquiry. They saw nobody as collateral, but reported on everyone regardless. The concept has no meaning when the entire community, including our families, were systematically targeted
O'Driscoll: We know #spycops & managers went on to work for private firms, taking their knowledge & experience with them. In doing so they continued the same intrusion & abuses they carried out as undercovers. There is little or no regulation constraining this revolving door.
O'Driscoll: The story of spycops is international. No half-decent account can turn a blind eye to the bigger picture of how they travelled beyond England & Wales, particularly the 2005 G8 protest in Scotland that appears to have been attended by every active spycop of the day
O'Driscoll: No account of spycops will be complete without understanding how MI5 interacted with them, how they directed & influenced operations, particularly the choice of targets, & what they did with the information they were given.
O'Driscoll: the police should not be allowed to escape accountability through often spurious security concerns. This just exacerbates the many injustices we have already suffered.
O'Driscoll concludes. A reminder that he's on Twitter, follow him at @PeterSalmon7 & the peerless team he works with to uncover the truth about spycops, @UndercoverNet
Mitting confirms that the Inquiry will look at spycops' relations with MI5 & private firms, but not about activity beyond England & Wales.
With that, the day concludes. The Inquiry will return at 10am for another day of opening statement from victims of #SpyCops. We will be live-tweeting tomorrow and every other hearing, and before that will post a summary of today's on our website
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