Early on Sunday morning, on the 6th of March, Jamie Bevan and I were arrested for taking direct action against the Tories in because of their cultural vandalism against the Welsh language. We broke into MP Jonathan Evans’s office in Cardiff and sprayed the slogan ‘Achub S4C’ (Save S4C) on the wall. The sirens went off straight away when we broke the window to get into the office. The police arrived while we were on the phone notifying them of what we had done. The policeman shouted at us to come out of the building and threatened to break the door down and spray us with pepper spray. We opened the door and came out peacefully, the police told us to get on the floor and on our stomachs.We were then put into the back of the van and were taken to the police station at Cardiff Bay. Jamie and I had been arrested about 3 months prior for spraying a slogan on a government building in protest against the weak Welsh Language law that let big companies get away with not providing services in Welsh. That time I was only in the cell for about 8 hours and I was allowed my phone call straight away. I thought I knew what to expect but it turned out that that this it would be a little different. I was not allowed my phone call until 17 hours after being arrested and would be in the cell much longer.
I was very glad to get my phone call, i was worried that my father had come all the way down from north Wales, it was lambing season so this would have been quite an inconvenience! I received a newspaper while in the cell that my friend Menna had bought me. I don’t know what I would have done without it, being alone for 33 hours would have been absolutely unbearable without something to read! There were a few articles about protesters in other countries, this really made me appreciate how lucky I was that I was not worse off. I was allowed plenty of tea and almost all the police (except maybe one or two) treated me with respect and were perfectly pleasant.
