London 2012 protests: heavy-handed policing is an affront to rights | Wail Qasim

Stop Critical Mass cyclists

shows how far can the police - a low tolerance for the Games and beyond

"People have the right to protest and is a very important part of our democracy," the Metropolitan Police said in its usual form, having stopped 182 people on the path of the ongoing cycle of Critical Mass opening ceremony of the Olympics. But - there's always a "but" here - we are invited to understand that they must balance this right with the rights of others to go about their business. "This appeal to the rights of a fictitious group of people perceive the police as being in danger, in this case, a group of cyclists, is used to derogate from the rights otherwise to provide demonstrators. It is not uncommon, but still disturbing.

However, the mass arrest of cyclists who disrupt Friday should not be considered as an over-the-top reaction from the police. This is the last low point of an attitude which shows a very low tolerance for dissent leading up to the London Games in 2012.

Back in April of this year, we saw the first "Olympic asbo" delivered, which prevented Simon Moore, arrested for protesting against the construction of basketball in Leyton Marsh "approach based on Olympic activity, or an officer. "The conditions of this order would soon become the model for the conditions of the bail given to most of the protesters arrested in the months before the Games, even including those who have no link to protest against Olympics as a series of ex-graffiti artists.

• The actual role of these draconian conditions of release that would have a significant impact on people's lives while they wait for months before they appear in court or pay seems twofold: extrajudicial police and boring easy ways by which they can criminalize dissent lowest level for the Games. We have only to look at the people, in fact, most of the 182 free, we must now go anywhere near the Olympics prohibited.
• This exercise control over people's lives to avoid protest against or near the Olympics extends beyond the police can impose conditions by a bond or ASBO. The weekend before the Games officially began on agricultural Carpenters residents in Newham hold a "round gentrification" of the area of ??present plans to regenerate the property by a possible agreement between the city and Newham University College London. Yet as the tour tried to access the local residents that he was prevented from doing so by the BBC security and police, as a broadcaster uses the first five floors of the tower to cover the Olympics. It seems that the mere proximity of the inhibitor of the Olympic event responsible for the police, even if you try to access your own home.

dystopian farce and acts as the arrest of six persons for pour custard on street theater often invited comments that events like the Olympics to present a "state of emergency" - where human are repealed standard to provide a spectacle. But the Italian theorist Giorgio Agamben, who is best known for discussing the issue should not be misinterpreted. It is a state of emergency, but far from being a period outside the norm in that the normal duties do not apply, there is a possibility for the lack of right to be duly inaugurated right after the exception Olympics is over.

clearly stronger when the exception is known by contact with the police, which appear as sovereign, and not the number of judicial opinions can make the freedom brought by them after all. Claiming to balance the "right to protest" against the "rights of others to go about their business" well practiced his line requires just really manage our lives in order to make dissent as invisible and unattractive as possible during the Olympics and beyond.

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