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NoneDie-in Protest for Palestine in Manchester, UK (2004)

On Saturday 8th May 2004, the Manchester Palestine Forum acted out a die-in on Market Street--one of Manchester's main downtown shopping streets. The street theatre included a mock Israeli "tank" complete with flag and sound effects.

Crowds of shoppers looked startled and bemused as the tank suddenly pulled out of a quiet side alley into the crowded shopping street on a busy Saturday afternoon. The tank's sound effects included engine noise, machine-gun fire, a siren, and a voice shouting warnings over a loudspeaker.

The "tank" was immediately pelted with "stones", made from foam, by "Palestinians" dressed in "blood"-stained white overalls. Meanwhile, shouts of "Free, free Palestine" rang out above the action. After a few minutes, the "Palestinians" fell to the floor "dead" and lay still for five minutes.

The die-in street theatre gave shoppers a little taste of the reality of occupied Palestine today. It created a lot of interest and normally blasé onlookers started to take leaflets in their hundreds. The action ended in a bun-fight between the tank-crew and groups of children throwing the foam "stones" at each other.

The police can be seen in the footage watching the action without complaint. On this occasion, they did not take any steps to prevent it from happening. However, when the same group of people attempted to repeat the same "tank"/die-in performance a few months later (Christmas 2004) just up the road at Piccadilly Gardens (a large city square), the police prevented it from happening. As soon as they saw the disassembled tank props arriving, they immediately put a stop to it.


This movie is part of the collection: Manchester Antiwar Videoblog

Director: None
Producer: Chris Edwards
Production Company: None
Sponsor: None
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: Palestine; war; anti-war; antiwar; Israel; peace; repression; civil rights; human rights; protest; activism
Contact Information: chrisedwards2004@yahoo.com

Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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Reviewer: kaliman - - May 7, 2006
Subject: keep
up the great work.

Reviewer: Jim Larkin - - February 7, 2006
Subject: Street Theater at its best
This is a great way to make the terrible situation in Palestine real to people in the West. And judging by the large number of downloads, this event has generated a lot of interest.

Reviewer: billy beatson - - February 3, 2006
Subject: ????????????
fucking nutters!