UK Arrests Over 1,000 Climate Change Protesters

Date: 22 April 2019 - 22:11

News ID: ۶۵۰۸۷

LONDON (Reuters/AFP) -- The number of environmental campaigners arrested during eight days of direct action in London topped 1,000 on Monday, police said, adding that Waterloo Bridge, one of the sites blockaded by the protests, had re-opened to traffic.
Climate group Extinction Rebellion has targeted sites in central London, such as Oxford Circus and Parliament Square, in a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience with the aim of stopping what it calls a global climate crisis.
Police said 1,065 people had been arrested in connection with the protests, and they had charged 53 with offences including obstructing the highway.
Oxford Circus and Parliament Square were re-opened to traffic on Sunday, they said, while Waterloo Bridge was cleared overnight.
Police had appealed to activists to move to Marble Arch, where they are allowing protests to continue.
Swedish teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg addressed crowds at Marble Arch on Sunday, urging them to never give up their campaign to save the planet.
The protesters said they were prepared to call a halt if the British government will discuss their demands.
"Humanity is standing at a crossroads," Thunberg said.
Organizers said they were willing to switch tactics from disruption to dialogue next week -- if the government enters talks.
"We are prepared to pause, should the government come to the negotiating table," Extinction Rebellion spokesman James Fox told AFP.
Extinction Rebellion was established last year in Britain by academics and has become one of the world's fastest-growing environmental movements.
Campaigners want governments to declare a climate and ecological emergency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025, halt biodiversity loss and be led by new "citizens' assemblies on climate and ecological justice.
Police said they had managed to clear the protesters from Parliament Square and the Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus junctions.
Those charged range in age from 19 to 77. They hail from around England and Wales, with one person from France charged.
The charges are for various offences including breaching public order laws, obstructing a highway and obstructing police.
Calling for an end to the protests, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said more than 9,000 police officers had been responding to the demonstrations, which had left the force as a whole overstretched.
"This is now taking a real toll on our city... this is counter-productive to the cause," he said.
In the blazing sunshine on Waterloo Bridge, police lifted protesters and carried them off to waiting police vans.
"I'm genuinely terrified. I think about it all the time. I'm so scared for the world. I feel like there is going to be calamity in my lifetime," student Amber Gray told AFP.