1.0 - DEMONSTRATIONS & PROTESTS 
   1.1 - Blockades and Occupations 

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   How not to be moved

   Why would you want to prevent yourself from being moved? Not moving is a major tactic for direct action. Not moving can is a method used successfully to prevent things from happening; missiles entering a base by road, live animals being loaded onto ships for export, trees being cut down, buildings being demolished, etc.

   It is practically impossible to prevent yourself from being moved, however some methods have been used with varying success as a means to delay the inevitable. Delays can cost the opposition considerable sums of money and can result in victory. 

   Sit downs / sit in's

   Sitting down is often used as a method to prevent a demonstration being moved on. It can work but it seems increasingly ineffective in most cases. It is naive to think that being in a sitting position will make it significantly difficult for you to be forcibly moved. However, it does require a lot of people to move a large crowd of people sitting down. 
   It also takes a long time. During the time it takes to move people out of the area, people who have already been moved off have the opportunity to move back in and sit own again, unless there are great numbers of police or security etc. to prevent this from happening. Sitting down can work, but if the opposition really want you moved they will do so, it just takes time and a lot of people. 
 

   Linking arms

   Linking arms with other protesters (or objects) can also make removing protesters more difficult. Doing this means that greater effort is required to move each protester, it may also requires more people and will certainly mean it takes a longer time to clear the protesters. However it also invites more violence and a greater chance of injury to the protesters. This can be used to advantage when there are a lot of reporters and cameras around, violence to non-violent protests makes good publicity. 

   Chains and handcuffs

   People don't like pain. This is used by the opposition when trying to detached protesters from things they are clinging too (whether other protesters or objects like railings). Bending back thumbs and fingers etc. This will usually result in the grip being loosed or given up voluntarily to stop the pain. 
   To prevent this from occurring, protesters sometimes chain or handcuff themselves to things. This method is not particularly effective since it is usually only done by small numbers of protesters. When the unchained protesters have finally been removed, the opposition is free to use bolt cutters or a hacksaw to remove the chained protesters. It is perhaps the cost of the hardware that prevents the technique from being used in large numbers. 
   Even if a large crowd of protesters did all handcuff themselves to each other and around lamp posts etc. eventually all the cuffs would be cut off. A very expensive delaying tactics from the point of view of the protesters. 

   Hi-bred systems

   Used to great effect by groups such as the 'No M11 link road campaign', hi-bred systems are very successfully in delay the removal of protesters. The basic principle in most of these systems is to place protesters in a way that only they can choice to leave, efforts to force them to leave will be very dangerous either to the protester or better still, to the opposition and the protester. 
   One such method is to use the handcuffing tactic but to do it in such a way as to make it virtually impossible to get to the 'handcuff' in order to remove them. Take a plastic pipe of large enough diameter to place your entire arm inside. Drive a metal rod or pipe through the plastic pipe so that it passes though at right angles. Place this object into something large and cumbersome then cement it in so that at least one end on the pipe is free to place your arm down. Now take a careabena hook (as used in rock climbing, sailing etc.) and fix this to your wrist with strong but comfortable binds of rope. You can now place you arm down the pipe and hock onto the metal bar. 
   Only you can unhook yourself, if anyone else wishes to move you, they most either move both you and the object at the same time, or they must take apart the object until then can unhook you, or carry you away attached to a smaller part of the object. 
 Another method used by the 'No M11 link road campaign' was an impressive scaffold tower built onto of the roof of a house which they were trying to protect from being demolished. The tower was so tall that the 'cherry picker' cranes that the opposition usually used to remove protesters who were occupying pile driver etc., could not reach the protesters on the tower. It proved to be to dangerous to send normal police officers up the tower to remove the protesters. In the end it was the cold weather and lack of food and water that made the final protester come down voluntarily after an incredible 5 day eviction attempt. 

[Author unknown]

[Reprinted in portions due to a desire to keep the text version of meltdown relatively short.]