carriageline
Established Member
- Joined
- 11 Jan 2012
- Messages
- 1,897
It seems Lush stores across the UK have launched a new campaign, which is certainly controversial!!
It’s aimed at outing #spycops. Undercover police officers who have apparently been tasked with infiltrating families of known activists. Some falling in love, and creating families with them.
https://beta.lush.com/en/article/paid-to-lie-spy-cops-campaign-uk-only
It’s aimed at outing #spycops. Undercover police officers who have apparently been tasked with infiltrating families of known activists. Some falling in love, and creating families with them.
We seek to highlight this intrusive, abusive, political policing in the UK and pressure the government to make the public inquiry more effective at uncovering the truth into this human rights scandal.
We will be promoting this through our social channels, website, and shop windows, from 1st June till the evening of Sunday 17th June.
We are partnering with groups who are already active on this issue, in particular:
Police Spies Out Of Lives (PSOOL) & Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (COPS).
Secret undercover policing units have been functioning in the UK since 1968. Their roles were to infiltrate political groups and collect 'intelligence' about planned demonstrations and the individuals involved. There is evidence that these units are still running and are now targeting, for example, anti-fracking activists.
Most of the time, we refer to the officers who worked for these units as the #spycops
Until 2010, the existence of these units was relatively unknown. Everything changed from the moment when Mark Kennedy was uncovered – he had lived amongst activists for seven years (and had long-term relationships with a number of women), using the name 'Mark Stone' – and the issue started receiving attention in the media.
Those who first suspected, and then confronted, Mark, found out that they weren't alone. Others came forward, with similar stories and experiences, and activists began putting together the pieces. Many women discovered that their previous partners who they'd fallen in love with, then been abandoned by, had in fact been undercover police officers sent to undermine the campaigns they were involved in.
The public were horrified to learn what these 'public servants' had been paid to do, and the level of personal intrusion suffered by their victims. Other grisly details began to emerge, for example the routine use of dead children's identities by these officers. We found out that #spycops had spied on grieving families, who were campaigning for justice following the (racist) murders of their loved ones. A police whistleblower, Peter Francis, came forward and revealed that he had been sent in to spy on the Stephen Lawrence family.
This shocking revelation was enough for former Home Secretary Theresa May to order a public inquiry which started in 2015. However the inquiry has been beset with issues. The first Chair had to stand down and the second Chair has been making the public inquiry progressively more secretive, and has been granting 'anonymity orders' to the police, undermining the very function of a public inquiry which is to get to the truth.
This Lush campaign will be asking the new Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, to prevent the public inquiry from collapsing. We are asking him to:
- Release the cover names used by these officers
- Publish the list of groups spied on
- Give us our files
- Appoint a panel
https://beta.lush.com/en/article/paid-to-lie-spy-cops-campaign-uk-only