Climate activists victim of flakey arrests

The Metropolitan Police have regularly arrested protesters when there is an extremely low chance of them ever being charged, new research by Greenpeace indicates.

Police officers made more than 600 arrests in London over the last six years for conspiracy to cause public nuisance but only 18 of them — less than three per cent — resulted in charges. The research also showed an almost tenfold rise in the number of arrests in the capital since 2019, when environmental protests became widespread. 

These numbers support the belief, widespread amongst activists and protesters, that the police are abusing this offence and other anti-protest laws to remove and intimidate peaceful protesters.

Participation

Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK said: “The fact that police are routinely dragging protesters off the streets for a crime they almost always fail to charge them with amounts to an abuse of their powers and an assault on the right to protest. 

“Arresting law-abiding people because they’re politically inconvenient is a frightening development in any democracy, and is a direct result of the government’s instinct to shut down free speech and prevent people standing up for issues they care deeply about.”

Khalid Abdallah, an actor and protester for Palestinian rights from London who appears in the campaign, said: “I think a lot of people don’t realise that the crackdown on protest isn’t just about tougher laws on disruptive civil disobedience, it’s about creating a climate of intimidation. 

“The right to speak out against the actions of the government is an important test of whether you live in a free, democratic country. I have lived in countries where rights we hold dear in Britain do not exist, and my family has paid the price for speaking out. 

“So I did not expect Britain to be the country where I would first be investigated by police for my participation at a public protest. For six months I lived under the threat of being charged, until it was confirmed the police would not take further action. Clearly, these statistics show I’m not an isolated case.”

Offence

A sharp increase in such arrests 2019 happened around the same time that Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future brought thousands of people onto the streets of London to protest against the lack of action to tackle climate change. 

Since then, successive governments have passed additional anti-protest laws giving police officers a wider range of offences to choose from, many carrying lengthy custodial sentences, resulting in hundreds of protesters being arrested and some being handed record prison sentences of up to five years.

Greenpeace and the other groups are calling on the home secretary to restore people’s right to make their voices heard on issues they care about by reversing anti-protest measures in two key pieces of legislation passed since 2022.