Police admit law breaking during Jiang visit

The Metropolitan Police has admitted in court that some officers broke the law by removing banners and flags from demonstrators who wanted to embarrass Chinese President Jiang Zemin during a state visit last year.

The force made its surprise admission during the first day of a High Court legal challenge brought by the Free Tibet Campaign, which accused the police of using heavy-handed tactics to suppress a protest over the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

"It was unlawful for individual officers to remove banners and flags from people solely on the basis that they were protesting against the Chinese regime," police lawyers acknowledged in court.

They also agreed "that it would be unlawful to position police vans in front of demonstrators if the reason for doing so was to suppress free speech."

The police continued to maintain, however, that the vans were necessary to prevent public disorder, not to keep protesters from Jiang's view during his five-day October visit.

The Free Tibet Campaign agreed to accept the police admissions and drop its legal challenge.

"This is a victory for the democratic right to peaceful protest in this country, something sadly lacking in Chinese-occupied Tibet," said Alison Reynolds, the group's director.

Heavy criticism of police tactics led the force to conduct an internal review that concluded in March that officers acted reasonably and were not put under any political pressure to keep protesters from annoying Jiang.

The government had denied protesters' accusations that it ordered a clampdown on demonstrations for fear of jeopardising trade deals.

Jiang's visit produced a £1.6bn Chinese order for 28 Airbus planes.

The police report blamed the media strategy of the demonstrators for focusing attention on selected examples of heavy-handed police tactics and ignoring "the free atmosphere in which the anti-Jiang Zemin protest was facilitated."

It said the flags and banners were removed in one instance because of a "threat to public order and the dignity of Jiang Zemin."