<nettime> London (pre-)Olympics: Round up ALL the usual suspects! (Guardian)

["Patrice Riemens" <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

original to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jul/18/graffiti-artist-adidas-banned-olympic

Graffiti artist who worked for Adidas is banned from Olympic Games venues

Darren Cullen is also barred from owning paint or using most public
transport as part of pre-emptive police crackdown

    Esther Addley, Sandra Laville and Ben Quinn
    guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 July 2012 19.33 BST


[British Transport Police arrested four men as part of a crackdown on
alleged graffiti artists before the Olympics.]  (4pic see site)

When Adidas wanted to create a mural to illustrate the launch of its new
football boot last year, it turned to "professional graffiti artist"
Darren Cullen for help. Cullen, 38, runs a firm providing spraycan artwork
and branding to major international companies, and says he has never
painted illegally on a wall or train.

But despite having worked with one of the Games's major sponsors, on
Tuesday Cullen was arrested by British Transport Police (BTP) and barred
from coming within a mile of any Olympic venue, as part of a pre-emptive
sweep against a number of alleged graffiti artists before the Olympics.

BTP confirmed that four men from Kent, London and Surrey, aged between 18
and 38, had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal
damage, two of whom were also further arrested on suspicion of incitement
to commit criminal damage.

They were bailed until November under strict conditions restricting their
access to rail, tube and tram transport, preventing them from owning spray
paint or marker pens, and ordering them not to go near any Olympic venue
in London or elsewhere. None has been charged.

The arrests were in connection with "a live and ongoing criminal
investigation into linked incidents of criminal damage between January
2007 and July 2012", said a BTP spokesman.

But Cullen, who says he has never painted illegally and whose firm
Graffiti Kings has worked with major blue chip firms including Microsoft
and NPower and the Royal Shakespeare Company, said he was not questioned
over any alleged incidents of criminal damage.

Instead, he said, he was asked about a website he had set up two years ago
on behalf of a client, frontline-magazine.co.uk. The website was "all
about the history of graffiti", Cullen said, but did not promote it. "I
don't condone or promote illegal graffiti," he said. "I always say to
young people: 'Don't do it. It's no good for you.'"

The arrests come as the Metropolitan police's strategy of halting
potential disruptive action in advance of major public events was given
high court endorsement. The tactic is a key plank of police planning to
ensure the Games are not disrupted.

In the high court on Wednesday, Lord Justice Richards and Mr Justice
Openshaw ruled the police did not operate an unlawful policy by carrying
out pre-emptive strikes before Prince William's wedding last year.

The judges dismissed applications for judicial review from 20 people among
scores who were arrested or subjected to searches in the days before and
during the wedding.

"We find nothing in the various strands of the claimants' case, whether
taken individually or cumulatively, to make good the contention that the
policing of the royal wedding involved an unlawful policy or practice,
with an impermissibly low threshold of tolerance for public protests,"
said the judges.

Human rights activists had argued the case had major implications for the
policing of other major events, including the Olympics.

In addition to his previous work for Adidas, Cullen said he was in
discussions to provide artwork with another major Olympic sponsor and had
been commissioned to spraypaint a London taxi to be used by a leading
broadcaster at the Games. His computer equipment, phone, iPad and his
son's laptop had been confiscated.

The four men's bail conditions also forbid them from entering "any railway
system, including tubes and trams, or [being] in any train, tram or tube
station or in or on any other railway property not open to the public"
unless in limited circumstances including attending a written appointment
with a solicitor.

They are also barred from possessing "any spray paint, marker pens, any
grout pen, etching equipment, or unset paint".

One graffiti blog claimed that among those arrested, some "had stopped
painting graffiti without prior permission over a decade ago ? while
others haven't touched a spray can at all in many years". It accused
police of attempting to "sanitise" London before the Games.


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org