Scotland Yard demo – Stop the Shredding, Release the Files

On 15 January 1990 people saw smoke rising from the Stasi headquarters in Berlin. The Wall was coming down and the spycops were desperately destroying the evidence that damned them.

The new political spirit of openness did not extend to people being given their files – they were only saved, and the extent of the Stasi’s depravity revealed, because citizens forced them to.

It is no exaggeration to say that the tactics of the Special Demonstration Squad and National Public Order Intelligence Unit were askin to those of the Stasi. They fully integrated into the families of people they spied on, often pre-emptively in case that person might start doing things of interest to police.

This week, an officer from Britian’s political secret police described his colleagues deleting files to prevent the public seeing them, just as the crumbling Stasi did.

On Friday 15 January – the 26th anniversary of the storming of the Stasi building – people will go to Scotland Yard demanding the openness about the Met’s own Stasi tactics, calling for:

• Publication of the ‘cover names’ of officers from the political policing units
• Publication of the names of groups who were spied on
• The end to destruction of files, and their transfer to a neutral custodian
• Everyone spied on to be informed and given full access to their file

It will be done in the same spirit as the Police Spies Out of Lives solidarity demo at the High Court at 1pm, ahead of Kate Wilson’s latest hearing in her four year legal battle to hold the Met to account.