protest intolerance

Just Stop Oil forcibly removed from the Home Affairs Committee whilst eight arrested outside parliament

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A Just Stop Oil protest in central London
A Just Stop Oil protest in central London

Just Stop Oil supporters have been forcibly removed from the Houses of Parliament where they were attending the Home Affairs Committee inquiry into the policing of public protests during the Coronation. Just Stop Oil is demanding an end to all new oil, gas and coal projects in the UK.

At around 10:30 am, five of the 19 Just Stop Oil supporters, who were wrongfully arrested on the 6th May, were ejected from the Home Affairs Committee inquiry after one of them attempted to speak. The supporters were wearing the same t-shirts they wore on Coronation Day, which prompted the police to arrest them for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. 

Dr Kush Naker, 33, a doctor of infectious diseases from London, began to read their prepared statement: “We, as supporters of Just Stop Oil, are here today because our democracy is under threat…” however, he was unable to finish before all five were forcibly removed from the committee. One Just Stop Oil supporter could be heard saying “we should not have been arrested for wearing t-shirts,” as she was ejected from the hearing.

Meanwhile, outside Parliament, eight supporters of Just Stop Oil were being arrested for peacefully marching in Parliament Square after a section 12 public order notice was issued earlier.

The Home Affairs committee has invited evidence from policing representatives, the anti-monarchy group Republic and human rights lawyer Adam Wagner. However, no invite has been extended to Just Stop Oil, despite supporters of the campaign making up over a third of those wrongfully arrested on Coronation Day. 

Just Stop Oil has presented a written submission of evidence about the day’s events that can be read here. The committee has responded to advise it will ‘not be formally accepting written evidence.’

A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:

“This is a continuation of the silencing of legitimate dissent we saw at the Coronation. The Metropolitan Police baselessly arrested doctors, lecturers, students and electricians, simply for possessing flags and t-shirts. This is clearly politically motivated and represents a massive overreach by the police. No evidence has been provided and now those wrongfully arrested are being prevented from giving evidence to the very committee that has been organised to assess the policing during the coronation.”

“The world is watching in horror at what has become of our once proud British democracy. This government, against all available scientific information, is pursuing an agenda of opening new oil, gas and coal projects, during a climate crisis that threatens the lives of hundreds of millions of people. This silencing of those opposed to these genocidal policies is not going unnoticed by the young, who will be overseeing the climate trials of the future. Those who facilitated and co-operated with these criminal acts will be held to account for the crime of genocide.” 

Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil forcibly removed from the Home Affairs Committee whilst eight arrested outside parliament

Police Protest Clampdown How the Met Arrested a Non-Violent Training Group

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https://bylinetimes.com/2023/05/15/police-protest-clampdown-how-the-met-arrested-a-non-violent-training-group/

There was a van waiting outside. One of the activists waved to the man in the driving seat. They didn’t think there was anything to worry about then; not ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ but close. They knew that what was planned for the group entering the meeting space in Haggerston, five miles away from the Coronation route, had nothing to do with King Charles III or his cavalcade of self-congratulation.

The members of Animal Rising, the direct-action group that advocates animal rights and plant-based foods, had a training session planned. They were going to learn more about non-violent protest action. 

But the Metropolitan Police was more interested in violent anti-protest action. The women and non-binary people in the meeting space had just made cups of tea and coffee and sat down in a circle to introduce themselves when the police arrived. It was roughly 10.30 am and 20 officers stormed in.

The officers told the group that they had intelligence that Just Stop Oil planned to disrupt the Coronation and pointed to leaflets, and paint used for screenprinting as ‘proof’.  Most of the Animal Rising activists were cuffed but they had to wait about an hour for a police bus to arrive.

They were then held for three hours in the police bus before being processed at the police station and then spent a further nine hours in custody before being released under investigation but not charged. It was after midnight when the women were back on the streets, far from where they had begun the previous day. 

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https://bylinetimes.com/2023/05/15/police-protest-clampdown-how-the-met-arrested-a-non-violent-training-group/

Continue ReadingPolice Protest Clampdown How the Met Arrested a Non-Violent Training Group

Protest intolerance under UK’s new authoritarianism.

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Climate activists call crown court judge ‘unprincipled bully’ during protest

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On Monday morning[ Today], 24 activists from Extinction Rebellion sat outside Inner London Crown Court carrying placards with the same message borne by Ms Warner.

The activists said they also handed in a letter to the court stating their intentions.

Lawyer Tim Crosland, who was disbarred for leaking a draft judgment about the building of a third runway at Heathrow Airport, said the protesters had chosen to be outside the court during another Insulate Britain trial to test Judge Reid.

He said: “He’s backed off, he’s left us alone. He’s exposed himself as an unprincipled bully. Because if he really believed that those signs were interfering with the courts of justice, it was his duty to stop us. And he didn’t.

“Think about what it means for Trudi and others who’ve been arrested. Those prosecutions are completely unsustainable, assuming we don’t get arrested now.”

The protesters, made up of doctors, lawyers and Quakers as well as a rabbi and a former police officer, sat in a row along the pavement outside the court premises showing their placards to passers-by.

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Climate activists call crown court judge ‘unprincipled bully’ during protest

Continue ReadingProtest intolerance under UK’s new authoritarianism.

Apocalypse-zealots report that woman was arrested for sitting next to Just Stop Oil activists

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Apocalypse-zealots the Daily Mail are reporting that Royal superfan Alice Chambers was arrested – presumably by accident – after sitting next to Just Stop Oil activists. I’m sorry but I find this story very amusing, talk about guilt by association.

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The architect, 36, said she had no idea she was sitting beside the environmental activists as they had not yet begun their planned protest.

As police swarmed on the group at 9am on Saturday, Ms Chambers found herself being handcuffed too.

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She was repeatedly quizzed, physically searched, locked in a cell and officers took her mugshot, fingerprints and DNA in a 13-hour ordeal.

It wasn’t until she was interviewed by two senior officers at 7pm that police finally realised they had made a mistake and that she was an innocent bystander.

She was finally released at around 10pm from Wandsworth police station after breaking down in tears. 

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I wonder if she got the cell with shit on the wall, a blanket full of scabies and a cup of tea and pubes treatment. I’ve been arrested a few times although the police are not anywhere near as nasty to me as they used to be.

ed: I think that I got discordant noise the last time that I was arrested (might have been the time before), many years ago now. I understand that discordant noise is military-grade torture.

later ed: The memories are coming back. I was arrested at Wandsworth police station once. It was a New Year’s Eve and I was arrested because the insane girlfriend I had at the time refused to pay for a black cab. I was put in a cage in a dog van with a barking police dog in the next cage. A fat policeman sat on me and very nearly killed me through suffocation.

So I do find it amusing that someone totally innocent had it.

8.10am 12/5/23

  1. It’s not amusing that somebody is arrested and abused.
  2. I don’t accept that she was arrested by accident. The police know who people are. It might be a message to architects, a joke about her being red-haired.
  3. The discordant music [22/5/23 noise not music] was when I was arrested at the 888 event. I was arrested by soldiers pretending to be police at that event. It’s likely that they were special ops from Hereford since 888 was a special ops event.
  4. I know why I was abused by police at Wandsworth police station and put into a d-o-g van. [ed: and many people have been killed for that reason, I’ve documented it elsewhere.]

9.30am 12/5/23

I can’t find the 888 post, I wonder if it was on the blog at a different host and not transferred over somehow. My blog at my previous host was also ‘hacked’ and posts were lost. That seems to have happened to me a few times for some reason i.e. first and second host.

888 was an event at Baldwin St, Bristol. From memory the date would have been something close to 8 August 2006 hence why I’m calling it 888. The story goes that somebody entered a Nationwide? building society branch demanding money and claiming to have a bomb in a bag. I was intending to pass this location and changed course at the last moment. I was arrested later by soldiers pretending to be policemen at this event.

Continue ReadingApocalypse-zealots report that woman was arrested for sitting next to Just Stop Oil activists

Just Stop Oil activists arrested in blanket ban on protests on London roads

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A Just Stop Oil protest in central London
A Just Stop Oil protest in central London

‘Your government has taken away your right to peaceful protest,’ the activists say. ‘If you are not outraged by this, you are not paying attention’

ACTIVISTS from Just Stop Oil were arrested during their daily action in Parliament Square today as they marched against the detaining of protesters and fossil fuel projects in Britain.

More than 40 protesters set off from Charing Cross in central London at 8am, but were forced to move their action onto the pavement after being approached by police officers who said they would impose conditions under the Public Order Act (Section 12).

A blanket notice under the Act was issued on all London roads ahead of the action, making protests unlawful.

The protesters returned to the road while marching past Whitehall before being told to get off the road once again.

They returned to the road for a third time at Parliament Square at which point around 12 protesters were arrested.

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Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil activists arrested in blanket ban on protests on London roads