Protest group have confirmed plan to disrupt airports this summer
Just Stop Oil activists plotting a summer of disruption at airports vowed to use all means “necessary”, the group said on Monday.
…
“This is not a course of action undertaken lightly, however action from governments must be commensurate with the scale of the crisis faced by humanity.
“Until that is the case, it is on the conscience of every ordinary citizen to utilise whatever mechanism is available to us to non-violently pressure for necessary change.
“Just Stop Oil supporters are trained in nonviolence and will undertake all possible steps to ensure that the safety of those using airports, as well as those in the air, will not be compromised by our actions.
“This includes avoiding going on any active or inactive runways.”
TWO peace activists were arrested at the weekend while attempting to deliver a letter to a Suffolk air base stating the opposition to an anticipated return of US nuclear weapons there.
Some 110 nuclear bombs were stored at the Lakenheath base until they were removed in 2008 after strong and constant protests.
But earlier this year, documents surfaced from the United States Defence Department detailing a contract to build defensive shelters for Lakenheath’s “upcoming nuclear mission.”
On Saturday, five women walked through the gates of Lakenheath, intending to deliver a letter to the base commanders, asking them to stop the nukes from returning.
Police stopped the women and two sat down peacefully, vowing to stay until a base commander could meet with them. Both were arrested and taken to Bury St Edmunds police station.
Commenting on the lengthy jail sentences imposed on climate activists for planning a peaceful protest, following a trial where the defendants were prevented from fully explaining the reasons for their actions, Greenpeace UK’s programme director Amy Cameron said:
“This is a dark day for the right to protest, a pillar of our democracy. Without it, we would have no votes for women, basic workers’ rights or an end to coal and commercial whaling. What sort of country locks people away for years for planning a peaceful demonstration, let alone for talking about it on a Zoom call? We’re giving a free hand to the polluting elite robbing us of a habitable planet while jailing those who’re trying to stop them – it makes no sense.
Just Stop Oil protesting in London 6 December 2022.
“These sentences are not a one-off anomaly, but the culmination of years of repressive legislation, overblown government rhetoric and a concerted assault on the right of juries to deliberate according to their conscience. This judicial crackdown on climate activists has gotten out of hand and is now a major international embarrassment. It’s part of the mess the Labour government has inherited from its predecessor and they must fix it by giving back to people the right to protest that’s been slowly being taken away from them.
“Starmer’s ministers should repeal the gagging laws brought in by the Conservatives and instruct the Attorney General to meet with campaigners and the UN rapporteur on environmental defenders to discuss a way forward.”
UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention Michel Forst attended the trial of five Just Stop Oil supporters at Southwark Crown Court. He attended as an observer because of his serious concerns.
Silencing defendants is the courtroom parallel to the wider attack on protest rights by the last government, including the “public nuisance” offence the Just Stop Oil five have been found guilty of and other measures that allow the police to shut down demonstrations before they have even begun, or haul peaceful citizens off marches for carrying placards or wearing imagery they object to.
Both reveal the collapse of ruling-class confidence in the people they rule. Grasping, after the shocks of Brexit and the Corbyn movement, that people are deeply dissatisfied with the system, their only answer is to ban protest and silence dissidents.
We cannot be silenced. The stakes are too high: as the Just Stop Oil cause illustrates, climate change, in the form of erratic weather, increasingly severe droughts and floods and crop failure, is already upon us. British farms saw a 19 per cent income drop in the last year because of mass flooding. The disruption to our lives from upsets to food production and the water supply will outweigh that from halting traffic on a motorway. The five must be freed.
Labour in power has a chance to change course from the crazy authoritarianism of the Tories. It is committed to restoring workers’ strike rights — but it must be made to restore protest rights too. Like the Tolpuddle Martyrs, we must “raise the watchword, liberty,” defying a state that tramples on our freedoms.
Police carry off a Youth Demand protester during a demonstration against the state opening of parliament, July 17, 2024Photo: Youth Demand
POLICE stormed a cafe and arrested activists before they had even begun marching today in the latest crackdown on the right to protest.
The Youth Demand activists were sipping their morning coffees in a branch of Leon in central London, ahead of a peaceful pro-Palestine demonstration planned by the group.
The activists were due to march towards Parliament, where the state opening was taking place, to urge the new government to suspend arms to Israel and halt all oil and gas licences granted since 2021.
Ten activists were arrested in the cafe for “conspiracy to commit public nuisance.”
“How is this more harmful than the people arming Israel?” one of the activists shouted as they were dragged away by police.
Shortly after, in Victoria Embankment, another group of activists were kettled in by police before the march commenced. Dozens more were arrested on the same charge.
Among those arrested was Violet Powell, a 23-year-old student.
She said: “Our leaders hide behind pomp and ceremony while a genocide is going on, and our new government are refusing to take action beyond making meaningless platitudes.
“Young people will not allow yet another government to continue ‘business as usual,’ when that business is killing countless people.”
