Protesters bombarded police with rocks and urine as they began the controversial clearance of a settlement of hundreds of Irish Travelers, a people similar to Gypsies and Roma.
Two people were shot by Tasers and a trailer was torched by activists after police in riot gear used axes to smash their way through barricades surrounding the Dale Farm settlement at dawn on Wednesday.
The raid follows a 10-year planning battle over the legality of the settlement, which ended on Tuesday when a high court judge ruled that an eviction would not be disproportionate.
The site, near Basildon in Essex, England, was home to 400 Travelers, but in recent months had attracted dozens of anti-establishment activists.
Essex police said there were suggestions that those on the nearly six-acre site had been gathering weapons for a showdown with authorities.
“Intelligence received, indicated protesters had stockpiled various items with the intent of using these against bailiffs and police,” the police force said in a statement.
“The first officers on the site were attacked with missiles being thrown, including rocks and liquids. These officers were fully equipped to deal with this situation.”
Police said that a Taser had been used on two people and three more had been arrested.
The dispute that has been rolling for the past decade is in large part due to the travelers not having planning permission to build houses on greenbelt land, which is set aside by local council authorities to prevent urban sprawl across the country.
Travelers claim that the order by the Basildon Council to clear the site, violates their human rights and does not respect the culture of this minority group. Long-term residents were distraught at the loss of their homes.
“The memory of Dale Farm will weigh heavily on Britain for generations—we are being dragged out of the only homes we have in this world,” resident Kathleen McCarthy was quoted as saying by AFP.
“Our entire community is being ripped apart by Basildon Council and the politicians in government. We will do our best to stay but it looks like we have no hope,” she said.
The council has put up around 18 million pounds (US$27.5 million) to clear the site. Basildon Council leader Tony Ball defended the actions of the council and police.
“I am absolutely clear that after 10 years of negotiation to try and find a peaceful solution to this, that actually what we are doing is the right thing,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
“I think we’ve seen from the level of violence put up by the protesters this morning that it was absolutely right that the police led the operation.”
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