Activists who have become involved in a romance with undercover officers are demanding answers after calling such spying operations “abuse” during an inquiry into undercover policing in the UK.
“We want to know, as a group of women and as a larger group of activists, why this large, sophisticated surveillance effort targeted thousands of people working for the betterment of society. […] has been funded for nearly 50 years,” said one of the victims of the operation on condition of anonymity, The Independent reported on Thursday.
Currently, an inquiry into undercover policing would seek to shed light on serious allegations of systemic abuse perpetrated by undercover officers over several decades in the UK, the British media continued.
One of them, a political and trade union activist, testified that she was in the middle of a relationship in 2001 after being introduced to an undercover agent who, using the assumed name Carlo Neri, had surrounded himself with a group of political activists.
“He made it clear from the start that he is sadly single and looking for a romantic relationship. We were introduced to each other and soon after began a relationship that lasted almost a year and had a much longer emotional impact,” the woman testified during the inquest.
But it wasn’t until 2015 that she would have found out the true identity of the one she had trusted for a year.
“Why do the police and security services still have thousands of files about us? We want to see these files […] We did not knowingly consent to these relationships,” she continued, likening police behavior to “gang culture.”
According to The Independent, at least 30 women were involved with undercover agents who spied on more than 1,000 mostly left-wing activist groups between 1968 and 2010.