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On Saturday, October 1st 2011, The Union Bears and The Blue Order
held a further protest at Ibrox Stadium in the 1-0 victory over
Hibernian. The protest consisted of a 54 minute silence, surrounding the
section in police tape and the unfurling of 3 banners;
"Police Line - Do Not Cross"
"Guilty Until Proven Innocent"
"Al Megrahi Sits at Home, Football Fans Sit in Jail"
Unfortunately,
our protest was challenged by the stewards within the stadium who
attempted to remove upon unfurling our "Police Line, Do Not Cross"
banner. Despite attempts at censorship of our opinion, we will continue
our opposition of the proposed 'Offensive Behaviour at Football and
Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill'.
Further to this,
following our protest action and the incidents that occurred on Tuesday
night, the BF1 section was subject to intimidation by Stewards and
Police, both inside and outside of the stadium.
Each entrance to
the Broomloan Road Stand had 5 stewards and 4 police officers. Certain
group members were subject to a full body search 4 times, by 4 separate
officers before being allowed entry to the stadium. No homemade banners
or flags were permitted entry to the stadium, including the Union Bears
group banner.
On entry to the stadium, the BF1 section had 8
police officers along the top row, stewards positioned down both aisles,
and 4 police officers and numerous stewards facing the section from
trackside. In total, our section counted at one point a total of 26
police and stewards around the section.
Supporters would also
have been aware of the messages over tannoy and scoreboard informing all
supporters that they must remain seated throughout the match. The
tactic from Rangers security on Saturday appeared to be the elimination
of all colour and atmosphere from Ibrox stadium, and the ejection of any
fans who dared challenged this aggressive and unnecessary action.
We had 6 supporters ejected from our section, with season tickets confiscated by stewards;
1 for standing
1 for filming police
2 for questioning why you can be ejected for filming police
1 for refusing to hand over season ticket details without reason or justification for why details where required
1 for handing out tape to supporters to cover their mouths as part of our silent protest
We
again, would like to thank the Rangers support for their fantastic
backing of the section on Saturday. Your messages of support are greatly
appreciated. We would also like to thank Alistair McCoist, for his
support. It is clear that the management team believes that vocal
support and atmosphere can inspire the players.
We were utterly
appalled at treatment we received on Saturday. We wish to support our
team in a vocal, colourful and positive manner and feel we are being
subject to intense intimidation and over aggressive policing and
stewarding. We will be compiling a document with details of events over
the past 2 matches, and submitting this to Rangers. Our hope is that we
can resolve all issues and get on with encouraging the team to our 55th
and 4th consecutive title without intimidation, fear of arrest or undue
over-aggressive stewarding.
Supporting Your Team Is not a Crime.
Yours in Rangers,
The Union Bears and The Blue Order
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