Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, on a state visit, has been welcomed to the UK by the Queen and political figures.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20150266
"During the first day of Mr Yudhoyono's visit, human rights activist Peter Tatchell was arrested for a breach of the peace after he tried to reach the car of the Indonesian president as he left Westminster Abbey.
Mr Tatchell, who was released without charge, claimed he had wanted to peform a citizen's arrest because the president "stands accused of crimes against humanity in East Timor and West Papua", but said he was arrested when he unfurled a West Papuan flag."
What do people think of attempted citizen's arrests such as these?
Originally posted by SleepyguySo in this case, you'd imagine that Yudhoyono's alleged crimes against humanity in East Timor and West Papua [there are others concerning his activities as a military commander in Aceh too, actually] were more 'mainstream' before the publicity stunt, and then more 'marginalized' after it? I would have thought that 95% of the people reading about Peter Tatchell's stunt in the paper the next day would have heard - for the first time - about the allegations against Yudhoyono in THAT newspaper article or in a TV news clip. Even if that only affects 500,000 people, I don't quite see how it 'marginalizes' information/knowledge that was, for all intents and purposes, non-existent before the stunt.
It's a publicity stunt that marginalizes the citizen's reputation and thus his message as well.
Originally posted by FMFWell that's a good point. I suppose if the issue had no visibility among the public to begin with it could be a worthwhile tactic in the information war. There are so many information outlets these days though, getting arrested and marginalized as a nutcase doesn't sound like a winning hand to me.
So in this case, you'd imagine that Yudhoyono's alleged crimes against humanity in East Timor and West Papua [there are others concerning his activities as a military commander in Aceh too, actually] were more 'mainstream' before the publicity stunt, and then more 'marginalized' after it? I would have thought that 95% of the people reading about Peter Tatchell's ...[text shortened]... ation/knowledge that was, for all intents and purposes, non-existent before the stunt.
Originally posted by KewpieA strong sense of injustice probably, I think He attempts to arrest any powerful individual with a history of human rights violations in order to draw attention to those violations.
Why does an Australian-born UK resident think he has the right to perform a "citizen's arrest" on the head of a foreign country, whose presence is considered acceptable by the monarch of his own country/countries?
It works I was not aware of the West Papua situation and my press were not tripping over themselves to tell me about it, I think we have a right to know what kind of people our regime's are rolling the 'Red Carpet' out for.
He did the same thing to Robert Mugabe and managed to actually perform the arrest, but for some reason Mugabe's bodyguards and the British police never gave Tatchel any back up.
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Originally posted by sasquatch672It freaked Robert Mugabe out, and it begs the question of whether these monsters should be free to walk the streets of a supposed democracy that is happy to arrest it's citizens for prostitution, or shop lifting.
That sounds painful.
http://www.petertatchell.net/direct_action/mugabe.htm