Other Projects

An action about the way that councils are constantly selling off land to private developers in the name of re-generation. East London especially has been undergoing an "urban renaissance" since the building of the docklands and broadgate centre, however all this seems to be doing is moving out the poor and replacing the charm of the east end with bland monotonous monoculture, safe for property developers and the rich to move in.

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Space Hijackers - 1
Police & CPS - 0
All charges have been dropped against the Hijacker 11

 

In the months leading up to London's G20 Summit in April 2009, the British press hyped up police warnings of an impending Summer Of Rage when public anger would erupt over the government's bank bailout. The streets would burn and anarchists would turn the newly unemployed into foot soldiers of the revolution. Thankfully the police calmed the situation by saying whatever happened they were 'up for it'.

Following on from previous projects where we parodied the police, the Space Hijackers decided to take our DSEi-busting tank out for another spin and ridicule the expectations of violence from the Police. We would tart her up as a Mad Max-styled mobile oppression vehicle and don fancy dress on April Fools Day (the date when the G20 summit and accompanying demonstrations were taking place). With Ride of the Valkyries blasting from the sound system, we drove into the city with our bicycle outriders to thrust the sword of satire at the State.

What's all this then? It seems the Police failed to see the humour in a 6-wheeled behemoth manned by the laughing cavaliers of anti-capitalism, arrested 11 Hijackers wearing blue boiler suits and started one of the most bizarre prosecutions mounted in a British court in recent years. In an utter waste of taxpayers' money, we were charged and scheduled for a four day trial facing charges of impersonating police officers, with the intent of decieving the public into thinking we were the real fuzz.

We always refuted these ridiculous claims on the part of the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service and invited people to look over the past 10 years of our work, which the police were well aware of, to see that we have a long history of parody, dressing up and winding up the powers that be.

Thankfully, after finally seeing sense, the CPS have now decided to drop all charges against the Space Hijackers and return our vehicle and belongings.

We would like to thank the Police for this amazing team building exercise they have put us through. At the cost of tens of thousands of pounds to the tax payer, the Space Hijackers as a group are now much more numerous, organised, brave, focussed and optimistic in what we can get away with. We look forward to their continued, if slightly fanatically eager interest in our work; getting our tank back, our compensation and using our new found team skills, to take our forms of protest up to the next more outrageous and cunning level.

We can only assume that the CPS bottled what was heading to be a very very expensive, complete circus of a trial ending in their inevitable humiliation at the hands of the Hijackers, Hodge Jones & Allen Solicitors and our QC.

Michael Wolkind QC, who was briefed on behalf of all the defendants, commented " it was a great surprise when Keir Starmer, the DPP, took time off from the investigation of the death of Ian Tomlinson, personally to confirm the absurd decision to pursue this prosecution. His judgement has been exposed by the late decision to discontinue the case".

In other news, the Space Hijackers now have a whole free week which we’ve all booked off work and therefore intend to spend it causing as much chaos as possible.

 

Buy Nothing Day 09
Mystery Non Shoppers

Our Buy Nothing Day action this year, took a much more subtle form than previously.

Teams of undercover Hijackers were set loose in Oxford Street department stores to try and minimise profits. Acting as personal shoppers / concerned customers / chatty public we endeavoured to persuade as many people as possible out of purchasing things in their hands:

"oh, I wouldn't bother buying one of those mate, I had one a week ago and it just fell apart. There all pretty low quality throw away fashion"

"Hey, I've just seen one of those in the charity shop around the corner for £10, you want too go have a look in there save yourself a fortune"

"Oh my god, red is SO not your colour"

"Hi, I'm a personal stylist, would you like a hand?"

Full report and pictures coming soon....

Signs Of Revolt
Creative Resistance & Social Movements since Seattle

From 14th - 22nd November the Space Hijackers took part in the Signs Of Revolt exhibition in London's trendy East End. We exhibited the last 10 years of our work and how it fits into the wider picture of anti-capitalist, anti-corporate and anti-war protest. Along with The Labofii, Movement of the Imagination, The Rebel Clown Army, War Boutique and many others we put on a show journeying from Seattle to Copenhagen.


Fighting against the DSEi Arms Fair in East London

Every two years, the worlds largest arms fair happens in the Docklands in East London. Supported by the UK government, Clarion Events invite delegates from across the world to peruse the latest advances in the technology of death.

This year the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane held a cushy little dinner for a selection of the most reprehensible nasty little men in the world. For some reason they wanted to keep the whole affair quiet? We thought we'd help them out with some advertising for it.

Full report here

 

OPeRaTIon IvY LeaGUe 2009

The City. A concrete monolith to avarice, greed, and sloth. Nature is dulled and forced to obey an urban rigidity. Rivers are suppressed, plants are pruned and bound to grow in ways that please planners. The suppression parallels the City’s workers, stunned and cultivated human bots conditioned to believe they are individual despite the uniformity.

Operation Ivy League is an attempt to sow the seeds of dissent within the strict architecture and culture of the City of London.

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Once again the Hijackers took on the dirty capitalists in a match for the city! Once again we won, and once again there were more bare breasts, broken bodies and drunken fools than you can shake a stick at.

full report

 

The Space Hijackers training camp is an annual weekend away for Hijacker agents. Escaping London we travel off to the countryside to learn essential skills, team build and run workshops.

Alas being a top secret camp for top secret agents we can't go into too much over what happened. However suffice it to say that the weekend consisted of various tests of both mental and physical strength.

read more...

The Space Hijackers teamed up with a various other troublemakers in order to lead a funeral procession through the East End marking the spread of Starbucks and other unwelcome multinationals.

Culminating in the closing down of the Starbucks In Whitechapel, this was a day for protecting our local community from the beasts of global unfair-trade.

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Mayday 09 - GUILTY
A CELEBRATION OF THE POLICE STATE

THERE IS NO PLACE FOR FREEDOM IN AN AGE OF TERROR! GIVE UP THE FIGHT AND CELEBRATE OUR STATUS AS HAPPY PRISONERS. HOW MANY MORE MUST DIE BEFORE WE LEARN TO DO AS WE'RE TOLD?

In response to the massive over-zealous police operation around the G20 which saw peaceful protestors beaten, an innocent man killed and thousands put under illegal detention in a kettle, the hijackers decided to return to the scene of the crime and highlight our police state. Around 400 people turned up to revel and critique our state with the street party going on until night.

click here for full report

 

 

In the light of the police's conduct at the G20 demonstrations, where arbitrary detention, assault and eventually murder seemed to be not simply the actions of a few 'bad apples', but rather institutional policy. We were glad to see that someone had decided to make their recruitment adverts rather more honest.

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MISS UNIVERSITY LONDON
"VOTING BOOTH"

The Miss University London competition has been coming under flak ever since the two men who came up with the idea launched it. Billed as "empowering" and "educational" the competition asks female university students to parade around infront of a panel before being judged on who has the best genes. Gender and Social stereotypes are re-affirmed, one lucky girl gets to live the dream for the night the rest go home in tears. This is then called entertainment.

Agent Koshka decided she had had enough and suggested the Hijackers get busy coming up with a plan to compliment the feminist protest and variety of other actions going on. In true Hijacker style we came up with a tongue in cheek exaggeration of the contest, sending a group of mainly male agents to go down and offend everyone.

more....

The Great Whitechapel Starbucks Who Dunnit Mystery?

Starbucks in Whitechapel had been a centre of protest and anger since it first announced it was going to open it nippleless mermaid clad doors in the East End. The Hijackers ourselves had held many actions at the store. However on January 13th all of our anger at the store had been outdone when mystery assailants smashed through the front doors and threw a firebomb in.

We took it on ourselves to try and solve the mystery, oh and perhaps accidentally remind everyone that Starbucks has such a list of enemies, that the mystery bombers could have come from all walks of life.

Let's find out Who Dunnit?

Clarion Events Arms Fair Marketing Exercise

Since Clarion events bought the Dsei arms fair, that delightful cornucopia of torture equipment and corporate cash flow, The Space Hijackers have been keen to help their marketing team inform the existing customer base of the new shopping opportunites this expansion will yield.

This time we decided to take our travelling arms fair marketing team along to their (not at all hypocritical) Spirit Of Christmas Fair.

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Ever get the feeling that all of life seems to now be controlled in a web of corporations, social networking, government control and money? Why should peoples social interactions be forced into the non-choice between online networking sites, corporate sponsored events, government regulated drinking establishments or pop culture driven night clubs? We're fed up to the eyeballs with it. If I want to play in my city, I don't want to be spoon fed database targeted advertising campaigns, be monitored as a focus group or be judged in comparison to this months glossy style bibles.

The Greenwich foot tunnel Pirate Party had been an idea brewing in our collective conscience for some time. The government have now banned drinking on the tube trains, and have been actively clamping down on any non licensed events for years. In an age where Facebook is seen as a social life something has to be done!

full report...

 

FREE HACKNEY

The powers that be decided to make a big song and dance about the official olympic torch being handed over from Beijing to London. Even organising a 1948 themed street party in Hoxton to mark the occassion. The Hijackers decided to roll up in our tank to join in the celebrations, oh and to mark the official handover from the Free Tibet campaign to the Free Hackney Campaign.

We managed to make quite an entrance, crashing straight into a security vehicle as we arrived, then pulling out our FREE HACKNEY banners.

full story ...

Bring on London 2013 (as we all know it won't be ready on time)

MAYDAY 2008/1708

A re-enactment collaboration between the Space Hijackers and the Metropolitan Police Players of the last ever Mayfayre in Mayfair.

on it's 300th anniversary.

read more...

  SOCPA
Tube Train Border Control

CSG (Citizens Supporting Government) are continually looking at new strategies to enforce the SOCPA zone, to make sure that London’s citizens understand the implications of the Serious Organised Crime Prevention Act, and don’t accidentally break these laws by expressing their political opinions without prior permission from the police. Hundreds of people everyday pack onto the underground, quite possibly oblivious to the realities of the law, quite possibly flagrantly contravening it, with what they are reading, wearing, listening to, or thinking. CSG were there to make sure the tube passengers don’t break any rules.

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Ten tonnes of waste per week is generated by the free newspapers in Westminster alone, which is not a problem that can be solved just by recycling. The only solution to the problem is to remove it - stop printing the papers.

In an attempt to get this message out, a group of intrepid paper boys and girls decided to use the tactics of The London Paper and London Lite, putting their own pro-recycling anti-waste propaganda into copies of the papers then aggressively and relentlessly forcing them on the public.

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Professional Protest Stall
on the Police Demo

When it was announced that 15,000 Police men and women would be marching through central London to protest for better wages, we realised that it was an opportunity not to be missed. Our years of experience of causing trouble have graced us with a wealth of knowledge which we decided to pass on to these fledgling protesters.

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EVERYTHING INSTORE
HALF PRICE TODAY

Buy Nothing Day is an annual protest against the consumer culture which grips many of our lives, a chance to take a step back and look at what's important in life, and whether shopping and advertising help or hinder societies wellbeing.

We feel that there are more important things to life than chasing empty promises of a better life through the collection of capital consumer goods. So each year on BND we enter into the chaos of the pre-christmas shopping blitz to play within the cathedrals of consumption and spread a healthy piece of chaos amongst the ringing of the cash tills.

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We love Artists Anonymous xxx

Every two years the worlds largest arms fair (DSEi) takes place in East London. Each time we go down to try and disrupt proceedings, wind up the arms dealers and raise awareness of the fact our government supports this corrupt business.

Most of the time we are escorted out by burly policemen and banned from the area

This year however we took things up a notch or two, after months of fundraising, the Hijackers bought a tank, a great big, heavy, noisy beast of a tank. We attempted to drive it into the arms fair, through the mounting police operation which was aiming to stop us.

I won't spoil the twists of the story now, but suffice it to say:

Space Hijackers - 1
£4 Million of Police - 0

read more....

 

 
 
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