Scotland
SCOPS
The Scottish Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (SCOPS) exists to help coordinate, publicise and support the quest for justice for people affected by political policing, undercover police spying and surveillance and to ensure such abuses do not continue in Scotland.
We support the work carried out by Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (COPS) in England and Wales, and the Undercover Research Group (URG).
Aims and Objectives of SCOPS
Everyone should have the right to participate in social change, workers rights and environmental justice, without fear of persecution, objectification, or state interference in their personal life.
For many years the British state and its public and private domestic security forces have policed activists with impunity, in many cases causing serious psycho-emotional trauma. The role of political policing is a serious attack on democracy, the right to protest and fundamental human rights. We call for transparency, accountability and justice around past and present political policing.
We aim to ensure the Scottish parliament opens a full independent public inquiry into the use of political undercover policing. Such a public inquiry should be lead by a panel of experts, with direction taken from those affected by undercover police infiltration and surveillance. This inquiry should have a mechanism for supporting those affected by undercover police infiltration and surveillance.
We will campaign to demand that the Scottish parliament creates statutory safeguards to ensure that the police, as well as public and private security forces in Scotland have no legal remit to conduct undercover infiltration and surveillance of political organisations and those campaigning for social change.
We aim to ensure the establishment of a robust independent body designed to hold all police, public and private security forces accountable to these new safeguards.
To meet these aims, we will function as a research working group to gather information and experiences so that we may expose existing and historical use of political undercover police infiltration and police surveillance in Scotland.
Through a process of secure and confidential interviews alongside in-depth research, we will create an archive documenting political undercover police spying in Scotland. We will utilise this as a means to both legally and politically hold policing and government bodies to account, including to pressure the Scottish parliament to introduce reform to permanently end political undercover police spying in Scotland.
If you would like to keep abreast of the work we are carrying our then follow us on Twitter at @SCOPScampaign or like our Facebook page Scottish Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance.
If you have been impacted by Police Surveillance in Scotland and wish to make contact then please email us at scotland@campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com
Political Undercover Policing in Scotland report
We commissioned an expert report to gather evidence about spycops in Scotland. This detailed, authoritative work demolishes the earlier whitewash review by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland and proves the need for a proper, credible inquiry.
You can download the PDF for free, or order a paper copy via Paypal.