POLICE performed daily check-ups on known Scottish activists during Donald Trump’s visit to the country, The National understands.
Videos shared with this paper by pro-Palestine activist Kimberley Davidson show her asking why officers have knocked on her door. They say it is for a bail address check, adding: “We have been asked to do these daily.”
Another video, taken by a second activist who is also on bail, shows police knocking on their door before an officer verbally confirms it is just after 10pm. The activist then says they already had a visit at noon that same day.
“We’re doing this for everyone, OK,” one officer responds.
“I don’t know if it’s because there’s obviously quite a high-profile visit at the moment,” one of the officers responds, making a reference to US president Donald Trump who was in Scotland from Friday to Tuesday.
Davidson then says that even if she was planning to protest Trump, there is nothing in her bail conditions to stop her doing so, alleging police “harassment”.
“What a waste of police resource," she adds.
A second video filmed by Davidson shows officers again at her home. Asked why they have knocked on her door, one responds: “We’re literally just to come and say hi.”
After Davidson asked the officers for their names and badge numbers, they say they have come for a bail check.
Activists told The National that they believed the “so-called ‘bail checks’ – as admitted by the attending officers – were in fact a direct response to Donald Trump’s visit to Scotland”.
“This raises serious concerns. Either it reflects a troubling lapse in intelligence, where monitoring [us] was deemed a justified use of police resources, or it reveals something more sinister: state-sanctioned harassment aimed at silencing dissent and shielding the president of the United States from legitimate protest.
“The real question is – who authorised this?”
Police Scotland did not respond to a request for comment.
More than 7000 police officers were deployed during Trump’s visit to Scotland, including 1200 from other UK nations.
Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Emma Bond said they did not yet have a figure for how much it had cost the taxpayer, but said it would be a "significant amount of money".
In 2018, Trump’s four-day visit to the UK cost around £14 million to police, according to Freedom of Information figures.
