Fight Racism!: ‘The public has a right to know about racism’
On Wednesday 20 December, comrades from Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! joined Sonia and Delroy Lindo and supporters at a lively picket outside Scotland Yard, to demand a copy of the report detailing police harassment against the Lindo family. The fact that the Metropolitan Police had been forced to carry out an internal investigation into this harassment is a victory for the campaign.
Throughout the year 2000, the Lindo Family Defence Campaign organised pickets of Tottenham police station and local courts, and had a vocal presence in community meetings. They used the media to demand that an investigation be carried out into the relentless harassment of the Lindo family by Haringey police.
An investigation held over several months, resulted in a report detailing the circumstances surrounding a total of 37 stop and searches and the 93 police intelligence reports concerning the Lindo family. Between August and October alone, there were no less than 33 police computer checks on the Lindos.
The report demonstrates that this systematic persecution of the family is racist and that the officers concerned regularly used abusive racist language. But the content of the report remained secret.
Following the picket to demand the report, the family were sent a copy by courier with a letter attached by Scotland Yard stating that there is copyright over the report and public indemnity forbidding its publication. The Lindo Family Defence Campaign argues that the report must be in the public domain.
The campaign pressure and a threat by the press to publish the report led to it being put on the internet by the Metropolitan Police on 29 January, but without any consultation with the Lindo family. Typically insensitive, the report initially contained personal details, which could endanger the family. As we go to press, following protests, these details are being removed.
At a Metropolitan Police press conference the next day, Delroy Lindo pointed out that not only had details of his spent convictions been leaked to the media but also information from confidential meetings with top people from Scotland Yard. The police, he said, need to change their attitude ‘starting right from the top and working down to police officers on the street’.
FRFI 159 February / March 2001
