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James: To have fun.Do you live around here?
Yeah, I live just down the road. I saw the protesters coming by, and I saw a load of pigs down on the other side of this wall—why can’t they all just drop fucking dead?Did you know about NATO before, or did you just decide to come down because you saw a load of cops?
Yeah, yeah, I did. I heard about the protest. At first I came up here to start a riot, and then I saw all of these people are fighting for a good cause.So you hate the police?
Yeah, the second they bring this wall down I’m fighting them.
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With NATO, I think nuclear war’s not a good thing—it’s what they’re all talking about up there. And Palestine should be a free country. What’s wrong with that?Do you have similar sentiments, Jake?
Jake: Yeah, absolutely. I live just up the road—all of these cops here are a pain in the arse. They’re all around Newport, absolutely everywhere.Anything you want to add?
James: Fuck the police and fuck NATO. Tell them to stick their own heads up their own arses.
Jake: Yeah, well said.

Meryl: When we went through the barrier it was like something from I, Robot. Seriously—helmets, full body armor, shields, guns ready to shoot. Hundreds of damn policemen. It was terrifying: 500 or 600 to protect two people who came down to receive our delegation. I put my hand on their shoulders, each in turn, saying, "I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest for aiding and abetting war criminals." I said, "I’m handing you over to the police," and this high-ranking police officer said, "We’ll decide whether we want to investigate." I was just making a point.
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It was a couple of hundred yards up the road. We went past all of the houses on the other side of the steel wall. There were police in people's gardens. Vans outside the houses, with armed police with dogs. Police hidden in the woods on the corner.So there are people living on the other side of the wall?
Yeah, it's a community completely divided in half. It's appalling. All of those residents must have been investigated. I don’t know for certain, but maybe some of them were removed from those houses, or maybe police in people's gardens were stopping them from coming out.Do you think anyone will read your postcards?
They’ll be binned [thrown away] before they get up to Celtic Manor. Someone took some white flowers—they’ll be chucked in the bin. Nobody’ll read them. They don’t give a damn. I also handed in a letter from a Turkish foundation. Turks are very concerned about what’s happening in their country. I told them about behind the wall and they said, "Our police have gone one stage further—they shoot people all the time." Those people need to be heard. So many people need to be heard, but nobody is [being heard] apart from that top 1 percent.

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