CzechTek Festival run over

[Pekka]

No, I read about the 'ravers' point of view the first time Colon posted the link. Before that, I read it from papers, and saw pics.

I didn't yell fascism and gestapo. But I could, after seeing a pic of a freaking TANK. You tell me that is normal.. and if it is, I don't want to live where you live .

The fact that they didn't take out the music shows they weren't there to end the festival. They did have permits, and I don't see any real facts here showing anything to give a reason to even try that.

Is it normal to throw them non-lethal granades into crowd, and tear gas? YES if you are breaking up VIOLENT RIOT or protest that has chances, real chances turning into riot.

AND in those cases the primary reason is, because in cities, it is then next to impossible to control the crowd and situation, and they start causing considerable damages to businesses and service etc etc, breaking stuff, stealing, and inviting others to join the situation.

Now how the heck does that relate to a remote location? All they could do is pound on each other, break some speakers, and stomp the grass??!! In which case they kind of helped achieving it, beating up party people, stomping the grass, bringing heavy vehicles to the ground and all that.

If this was such succesful operation, then why there is nothing much about it on TV? It suggest the opposite of it. Just because there are bunch of hippies in the party too doesn't mean they are not saying what really happened.

I don't know where the 20 minute timeline came in. Maybe it was 20 minute in of the second day or so then. I don't know. Right now, after all the evidence we can see in the pics, it's not even relevant anymore.

Oh and another thing to consider. These festivals are known for being peaceful. That's right. Doesn't mean it's automatically true in every case, but I have my doubts this would be any different.

"I'm sure the organizers had that contract-paper, showed it to the crowd and cheered "look, everything is legal, now we can do everything we want."

Yeah. And your facts are where? You are assuming lots of things too. 12 years tradition, thousands of people attending from many countries would indicate the organizers weren't born yesterday, like you suggest.

" The police action was justified with damages done to the property of neighbours and breaking the nocturnal silence without special permit."

OK then.. next time Elton John comes to the stadium and pollutes the downtown Helsinki, let's throw granades in, tear gas, bring the tanks and do that for a while. Or not?

So if it was that bad, why didn't they take out the music, like they do everytime a party is busted?

Obviously it was justified action, as the evidence you show to everyone is that they broke the law from God to not make sound, and allegedly some neighbour property got damages.

And for common sense, you can't break out festival going on that long and expect people to go home, if there's thousands of people, mayn from different countries. And where are they going to go? Somewhere? I don't think this is realistic, besides many of them prolly were drunk/high/whatever to drive. If they wanted to stop the festival, they should have maybe got in there before the party started, it being massive and annual, and say they don't have proper permits or what ever, and not let it even begin, uh? And when that was not done, then take it up to organisators, demand them to shut down the music, if not cooperating then shutting it down by force. That's it. People you can stay here sitting on your ass, we'll leave some troops here to watch no damage is done to neighbour property. Hardly it is effective to launch in?!

And if you consider this justified action, legal, and proper, if the sound barrier is broken.. when thousands people are in, in remote location no less.. then it is fascism.

[Pekka]

Which one is better.. when it's obvious the people aren't goign anywhere, to bring out the big guns when the event isn't violent to begin with or threat to society or bystanders, since there aren't any.. or to protect the neighbouring property and arresting the organizers? Because without them, the party isn't going any longer. TAke out the music and wait until everyone leaves. They will leave. Why challenge for fight? For public safety, I would consider not sending in the big guns but let them have the event go on until it's planned to end, arrest organisers, and move on from there. No point of taking a huge risk attacking big crowds for reason being 'they make lots of loud noise', sine they were in some remote location.

Because they didn't have the control to begin with, and obviously failed to gain it. I mean IMO it's pretty obvious to break it with lots troops is going to be messy. How about just saying to anyone who complains next to the area that they should just try to adjust for some time now, I mean it has been 12 years running so I think they kind of knew it.

Because it's not cops against the party people. Cops are here, at least in our society, to serve and protect. Not to break things. For the reason 'all the permits weren't ok', which still is not even shown to be true even, is not enough to cause such high risk operation IMO. Why create that much violence to break up a party? Because it might have been illegal (says you)???? What if there were ten times more people, would it still been OK to send an army with real bullets, because then cops couldn't have taken out the party, but it MUST be broken?! Weird.

[joncha]

Pekka, despite being a communist, is correct.

[Pekka]

joncha, don't get me wrong, I enjoy pics of leftist youth getting batoned in the middle of the dirty long hair and their gfs crying in their flower dresses, but there are some general principles I feel are important to be followed when we are talking about breaking up crowds.

Just like mafiosos, we don't go arrest them the first second we see them.. we collect evidence.. so we can make the sentences stick. So it's not about 'we can't let the crime continue'. It's common sense. If it causes more harm than not, I mean if it's some damages to someones property (if not in hundreds of thousands of euros and more), then let the freaking thing go on and take care of it when it's over, and have presense nearby. I don't see any point of getting in there. It's not cops against the people. Not unless it's police controlled nation, that I'm sure Czech Republic isn't.

I would be pretty pissed off if I went there, being little drunk, then cops coming in to baton me and me getting tear gassed just because some fools broke some stuff somewhere. And yeah, if you send out cops in riot gear, your bet your butt you will see youngsters meeting that wall of shields. This is provocation by default.

Chances of that event turning into riot are slim to none, unless the event is attacked like this. Why? Because it was a party. Protests are politically motivated, amongst public, so when you are starting to lose control over crowd in those places, you might need to break it and it can turn ugly, but there is a chance of riot, or violence, because they are there for other reasons than to have just fun. And there are always few buttholes who are trying to ruin it for all in all festivals, but they are usually just picked out and arrested, no big deal. If these are the criterias of justified action, then I guess we should expect all festivals to be run over. If this was some big names rock festivals, there'd be huge outrage by now, but since it was some flower people in some open field, getting tear gassed, no one cares. And that is hypocricity.

I still hope most folks who got gassed were leftists.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Pekka
No, I read about the 'ravers' point of view the first time Colon posted the link. Before that, I read it from papers, and saw pics.

I was referring to you and Colon in a bunch, yes.

I didn't yell fascism and gestapo. But I could, after seeing a pic of a freaking TANK. You tell me that is normal.. and if it is, I don't want to live where you live .

I reiterate that I couldn't find the tank on a foto. I don't deny it's there but I have to see the pic to judge what to think about it.

The fact that they didn't take out the music shows they weren't there to end the festival. They did have permits, and I don't see any real facts here showing anything to give a reason to even try that.

I can only wonder how you are so sure that they had proper permit. There are year-long discussions over tolerating this "free-festival" whose event location is kept secret to the very last day. There sure has to be a communal permit because of all the noise and the mayor of the village and community board where it took place stood behind the police action.

Is it normal to throw them non-lethal granades into crowd, and tear gas? YES if you are breaking up VIOLENT RIOT or protest that has chances, real chances turning into riot.

AND in those cases the primary reason is, because in cities, it is then next to impossible to control the crowd and situation, and they start causing considerable damages to businesses and service etc etc, breaking stuff, stealing, and inviting others to join the situation.

Now how the heck does that relate to a remote location? All they could do is pound on each other, break some speakers, and stomp the grass??!! In which case they kind of helped achieving it, beating up party people, stomping the grass, bringing heavy vehicles to the ground and all that.

I cannot tell whether the action itself was appropriate in every aspect, but I'd like to hear a neutral police/security expert on the situation. Fact is that a first attempt to end the party was responded violently by a large crowd which despite many requests refused to leave the place. So the only way was using force to make them go because the other option would be tolerating this festival which is not tolerable by uninvolved neighbors and the community. Next year, more force if they don't learn.

If this was such succesful operation, then why there is nothing much about it on TV? It suggest the opposite of it. Just because there are bunch of hippies in the party too doesn't mean they are not saying what really happened.

Please decide whether nothing or not much. At any rate, the video link given by Colon shows it in the news. And there IS a public debate on it in Czechia, so I can't see a foul here.

I don't know where the 20 minute timeline came in. Maybe it was 20 minute in of the second day or so then. I don't know. Right now, after all the evidence we can see in the pics, it's not even relevant anymore.

What's the big evidence in the pics? We already knew that the police used tear gas and water thrower. You mean that they didn't unplug the music? (See below)

Oh and another thing to consider. These festivals are known for being peaceful. That's right. Doesn't mean it's automatically true in every case, but I have my doubts this would be any different.

Thousands of people invading a community, refusing to accept basic rules of conduct is hardly peaceful to me. Disturbing other people's deserved peace is an agression to me. I imagine living there with my 3 year old son, being exposed to the noise days and nights over, hundreds/thousands of free running dogs and people urinating everywhere. That's an occupation and not peaceful. Inhowfar the crowd was peaceful or not when the cops came for the first time I can't say - the versions are naturally opposite to each other. According to the police they were welcomed with bottles and stones and that responds well to the attack seen on the video.

"I'm sure the organizers had that contract-paper, showed it to the crowd and cheered "look, everything is legal, now we can do everything we want."
Yeah. And your facts are where? You are assuming lots of things too. 12 years tradition, thousands of people attending from many countries would indicate the organizers weren't born yesterday, like you suggest.

I was trying to make an illustrative description to express that a contract with the land owner can't be taken as an excuse. If I make a party in my flat, I still have to talk to the neighbors or turn down the volume after a certain time, otherwise the police will come. I had such a situation once and accepted it. If not, the police has to do something.

"The police action was justified with damages done to the property of neighbours and breaking the nocturnal silence without special permit."
OK then.. next time Elton John comes to the stadium and pollutes the downtown Helsinki, let's throw granades in, tear gas, bring the tanks and do that for a while. Or not?

If Elton John doesn't have a permit and the organizers and participants would refuse to leave the place, maybe even attacking the police, yes. But anyhow, most people would tolerate a few hours of noise, but not several days!

So if it was that bad, why didn't they take out the music, like they do everytime a party is busted?

So, where's the evidence for that?? On the video, I can't hear any techno noise in the background, only the ravers shouting. It seems again to be a random allegation following the principle that one will not be questioned. Take the "only 20 minutes and they were ready" which is now irrelevant, the "Police caused one dead" which is simply incorrect and now the "the music was not unplugged". It all seems not to be true as a little research reveals.

Obviously it was justified action, as the evidence you show to everyone is that they broke the law from God to not make sound, and allegedly some neighbour property got damages.

Yes, people who work, children, old people etc. have a right to sleep at night. If this basic rule shall be excepted for a certain period, the community has to be asked and allow it. What's God doing here?

And for common sense, you can't break out festival going on that long and expect people to go home, if there's thousands of people, mayn from different countries. And where are they going to go? Somewhere? I don't think this is realistic, besides many of them prolly were drunk/high/whatever to drive. If they wanted to stop the festival, they should have maybe got in there before the party started, it being massive and annual, and say they don't have proper permits or what ever, and not let it even begin, uh? And when that was not done, then take it up to organisators, demand them to shut down the music, if not cooperating then shutting it down by force. That's it. People you can stay here sitting on your ass, we'll leave some troops here to watch no damage is done to neighbour property. Hardly it is effective to launch in?!

They didn't want to let it begin, but the police ready to prevent it was not large enough. And exactly that's the reason why the organizers keep the location secret to the very last moment. They get told every year that it's not allowed. The organizers were urged to end the festival from the moment it started but didn't respond. The crowd was asked to leave the location too. And between police action 1 and police action 2, there was enough time to make people start to leave. I'm sure that, had the crowd bit by bit dissolved, the police would not have acted again. They simply decided to stay.

And if you consider this justified action, legal, and proper, if the sound barrier is broken.. when thousands people are in, in remote location no less.. then it is fascism.

For that, we'd have to know how close/far the village lies. I doubt that anyone would care if uninvolved people were not disturbed. After all, it was no political event, so the fascism cry goes unheard.

[Colonâ„¢]

Wernuzema, are you comparing this to Genova? This is a FESTIVAL we're talking about, not a protest march where thousands known trouble-makers want to stir up the house. At a festival people just want to have good time.

Do you know any people who have been involved in organising large events and festivals? 9 out of 10 of such people make pretty damn sure everything is legit, because preparation takes month if not a whole year, half the time they'll make a loss at it, and the last thing you want is that the cops find a legit reason to shut it down.
And this is a festival that has been going on for 12 years already and the organisers will surely be experienced so I find it highly unlikely they'd rashly ignore the rules.

Even if they or the visitors did break the law, the use of force would seem to be totally disproportional to the misdeed.

The police began overrunning the festival on saturday at 16:30, and the police actions in the area went on during the night and the morning thereafter, so I don't find it very unlikely that the death is closely related to it.

[Colonâ„¢]

Check the 12 videos on this page: http://g4.freetekno.cz/

You can hear very well the music went on while the police surrounding the area, and even while they started tear-gassing and used the water cannon.

[Az]

I still hope most folks who got gassed were leftists.

Most people into electronic music aren't leftists. they were probably little bourgois kids. Other people can't afford concert tickets in central europe. .

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by Az

I still hope most folks who got gassed were leftists.

Most people into electronic music aren't leftists. they were probably little bourgois kids. Other people can't afford concert tickets in central europe. .

You can't generalise like that really, some scenes may be full of bourgeois kids, others may be attended neo-nazis and yet others by hippies. This was a tekno festival, and tekno generally draws left to far-left people. ("tekno" not the be confused with "techno". I know, it's semantics but the audience is different)

[C0ckney]

what electronic music attracts neo-nazis, i thought they were all about death metal or 'skinhead' rock etc.?

[C0ckney]

and by the looks of things the police here were totally out of order. facists

[Colonâ„¢]

In Belgium and the Netherlands at least hardcore has a reputation for drawing a lot of neo-nazis.

[C0ckney]

over here it's more like 16 year olds with burberry caps and a *** behind their ear in the hardcore tent, but there might be some nazis there, i never really go to the hardcore areas though, because it's ****e.

[Pekka]

"If Elton John doesn't have a permit and the organizers and participants would refuse to leave the place, maybe even attacking the police, yes. But anyhow, most people would tolerate a few hours of noise, but not several days!"

What a weird thing, Elton John is coming here in few months, just checked .

Anyway, this is where my opininon differs. I would not risk a fun having thousands of people and attack with such magnitude, when there are some folks who can't tolerate the noise. I would try to calm them down and say there will be fines and they will get compensated for their troubles and hand out ear plugs or something. It would be unrealistic for few to demand 'charge!' when there's like.. well crowd that big, and it was festival - not riot.. plus it's open field, it's not like it's easy to direct people. Almost mission impossible and guaranteed to draw blood. Not worth it if you ask me, since all people were doing is having fun at the end, and people guilty can be pointed, os it's not like they're getting away with it.

[Colonâ„¢]

Actually, there don't appear to be any houses nearby the festival area, upon seeing the videos&pictures.

C0ckney: yeah well, actually there's there's a lot of dispute about whether the reputation is warranted, but I think it's fair to say it draws a lot of people with far-right leanings, even if it's just a silly puberal phase.