Watch British ravers hold a peaceful protest party to combat ‘persecution’ by police
At 2pm on Saturday, Janurary 30, local ravers converged upon London’s Shoreditch neighborhood for an event titled on Facebook as “Freedom To Party.” The gathering was meant as a peaceful protest and demonstration to police officers, whom they feel have been wrongly persecuting the rave community. “I know they’re illegal, but there’s no harm being done. These empty, abandoned buildings are being used for good, for happiness,” stated one of the protest’s organizers. Their goal, he elaborated, was simply to show that “we are a friendly people, and we can have a good time without causing trouble.”
Recent events transpiring in the London nightlife scene have been causing increased strife between civilians and authorities. As many of the city’s integral nightclubs have fallen victim to gentrification, people are left with fewer places to come together and enjoy a night of quality music. Meanwhile, the underground scene, which has been an pillar of British party culture since the ’80s, has suffered a considerable blow with increased shut downs and seizure of expensive equipment. “We do no damage and leave the places as we’d found them,” quipped one of the protest’s older attendees. “All we want to do is dance properly.”
From the looks of the above news clip, demonstrators at Freedom To Party achieved their goal of proving that peaceful partying exists, a stark contrast to the ruckus caused in early November when a police shutdown led to 28 arrests and 12 officers injured. The event emulates a similar protest that happened in 1990 London, where around 10,000 ravers held a dance party in Trafalgar Square to speak out against more stringent anti-partying laws being passed at the time.
photo credit: The Daily Mail
Via: Fact Mag and The Evening Standard
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