Police have really plundered a Quaker convention residence and jailed 6 women collaborating in a celebration of the demonstration group Youth Demand.
More than 20 uniformed cops, some equipped with Tasers, compelled their means proper into the Westminster convention residence at 7.15 pm, in accordance with a declaration by the Quakers.
“No one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory,” said Paul Parker, the recording workers for Quakers in Britain.
“This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful elimination of younger folks holding a protest group assembly clearly reveals what occurs when a society criminalises protest.
“Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy.”
In a video clip uploaded on Youth Demand’s Facebook page, a woman that asserted to have really gone to the convention defined it as a “publicly advertised welcome talk” relating to the group. She said cops took attenders’ telephones and laptop computer computer systems.
Youth Demand defines itself as “a youth-led nonviolent civil resistance campaign demanding the UK stops arming Israel and cancels all new oil and gas granted since 2021”.
The Quakers’ declaration said they “strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship” and indicated the extra stringent opposing legislations generated by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023, which they asserted had been straight accountable for the raid.
The Met cops said it had really jailed 6 people on the convention on uncertainty of conspiracy idea to create a public annoyance. It said it jailed 5 different people for the exact same offense on Friday– 4 in London and one in Exeter.
The cops said these jailed turned a part of Youth Demand and asserted these collaborating within the convention had been intending straight exercise within the sources following month.
“Youth Demand have stated an intention to ‘shut down’ London over the month of April using tactics including ‘swarming’ and road blocks,” cops said.
“While we absolutely recognise the importance of the right to protest, we have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality.”
Police said all these jailed had really been launched on bond, in addition to one which was launched and will definitely cope with no extra exercise.
Quakers, a label for individuals of the Religious Society of Friends, adjust to a non secular observe that expanded from Protestant Christianity within the seventeenth century.
Quakers have a prolonged background of sustaining demonstration actions and nonviolence is amongst their core concepts.
