POLICE raided the Climate Change camp on the perimeter of Heathrow Airport on Tuesday evening, with the aim of intimidating protesters, News Line was told yesterday.
On the campsite, John Adams said: ‘They brought in riot police last night.
‘They wanted to bring Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) on site.
‘These are basically photographers and intelligence officers to profile activists.
‘Policemen tried to escort a FIT team on site.
‘Everyone saw them coming and the whistles went and a lot of people from the camp came down, surrounded them and they were shouted out of camp.
‘They were surrounded and got scared and their commanding officer called for reinforcements.
‘We then saw a riot team appear at the end of the road.
‘Six vans filled with riot police.
‘There was a bit of a stand-off and then the police left.
‘It happened at about 7.00pm after the media had left.’
John continued: ‘There are a lot of armed police.
‘The Tactical Support Group are another kettle of fish.
‘They are the ones who appeared last night, almost as if they were trying to provoke us.’
Lydia Bulmer, a student, said: ‘There’s been so much publicity about the camp and millions of people support what we are doing, so I don’t think they will be able to close us down. It would look too bad.
‘We are not terrorists, we are just concerned citizens of the world.
‘We are here until Monday, but I think it should become a permanent camp, until we win.’
The camp site is divided into regions, with signs bearing the names of the regions by the tents.
At ‘Scotland’, John told News Line: ‘I got punched in the ribs.
‘They came while we were having dinner.
‘They marched through the site to intimidate us.
‘The raid alarm went off. We pushed them off the site, using non-violent resistance.
‘The police were trying to push us to start with, punching many people.
‘They used pepper spray, but it was raining so it didn’t work very well.’
Gary added: ‘The media had been there for two days, but they seemed suddenly to disappear and the police raided the camp.’
