The G8 is over, the protests are over and everything is winding down. There are still some people in prison, but most of the people arrested on the last Monday are out now, and it seems also a lot of the others picked up on Wednesday and so on.
It is not quite sure if people are continued to be arrested, now it seems that particular individuals are targeted.
However, the Resist train has left Edinburgh and arrived in London without major problems.
At the moment a major tidying up operation is in place – the Indymedia Centre in Edinburgh is already dismantled and the camp in Stirling has till Tuesday to clear off the land.
All in all, for us local activists, it was a very empowering experience, at least until now. Totally contrary to any expectations the locals joined in a street fight with the police, apparently picking up an Australian Aboriginal flag to lead them into battle…
I would have never thought something like this would be possible in Edinburgh! I always considered Edinburgh the most conservative, grey and boring city, and suddenly the whole perspective on this city and on Scotland changes.
I am looking forward now to relax and calm down and discuss the events with other people. Also, it was said, that the most severe injury during these G8 protests was actually a protester run over by a cow when crossing their field, breaking her leg.
The police claims nobody had to spent a night in hospital and are proud of that statistic compared with any other international mobilisations.
Despite the mainstream media hype, the locals seemed to be incredibly supportive of the events and joined in a lot.
The Indymedia Centre was complimented as being “(one of) the best ever seen during an international mobilisation”, possibly because of the link up with the Forest Cafe, and the Stirling eco-village turned out to be even better than the VAAG in my opinion.
The Jack Kane centre got its CCTV dismantled after the wild camping protest in Pilrig Park – nothing happened there of any significance and the Council has now egg on their face for being so paranoidly careful.