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Extinction Rebellion defies protest ban and targets Google Extinction Rebellion defies protest ban and targets Google
(32 minutes later)
Lawyers for Extinction Rebellion have filed an urgent application for a judicial review hearing at the high court in London, as the number of arrests in 10 days of demonstrations rose to 1,642 with 133 charged. Nursing mothers and youths blockaded Google’s London headquarters on Wednesday in protest at the company’s funding of climate deniers, as Extinction Rebellion defied a police order by continuing to stage actions in the capital.
The request was filed at the royal courts of justice on the Strand shortly after 10am on Wednesday. It comes after the Metropolitan police imposed a section 14 order on Monday night, in effect banning all protest by XR in the capital. A Guardian investigation revealed last week that Google had made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington, despite its insistence that it supports action on the climate emergency.
The Met’s deputy assistant commissioner denied the force had banned protests and said it had every right to order the demonstrations in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere to end on Monday evening, after nine days. Laurence Taylor said “significant disruption” had been caused to London with the Met being under such strain it had to draft in 500 officers from across the country. Mothers of infants held a “nurse-in” outside the company’s offices in King’s Cross and members of XR Youth climbed on top of the entrance to Google-owned YouTube, on the other side of the same building, holding a banner reading, “YouTube, stop climate denial”.
Outside the court, Tobias Garnett, a human rights lawyer working with XR’s legal strategy team, said it was claiming that the order was an infringement of the right to protest, disproportionate, and beyond the powers given to police by the Public Order Act. In a letter to YouTube, they said the platform, which has 1.9bn users, had a responsibility to stop hosting “misleading and inherently dangerous” climate denial videos. They pointed out that a recent survey found more than half of teenagers in the US said they got their news from YouTube.
“There’s a general consensus that this is unlawful overreach and that it risks criminalising anyone who seeks to protest about the climate and ecological emergency,” he said. As of 8am on Wednesday there had been 1,642 arrests made over XR protests, according to the Metropolitan police. The rate of arrests accelerated on Monday night after the police imposed a section 14 order in effect banning all protest by the group in London.
“As we saw from Sadiq Khan even, the mayor, yesterday, there is a suggestion that a lot of people think the police have overstepped the mark here, and we hope the court will agree.” Lawyers for XR filed an application for an urgent judicial review hearing at the high court. Tobias Garnett, a human rights lawyer working with XR’s legal team, said they would argue that the order was an infringement of the right to protest, was disproportionate, and went beyond the powers given to police by the Public Order Act.
Garnett said judges had been asked for an expedited hearing scheduled for 2pm on Wednesday. “There’s a general consensus that this is unlawful overreach and that it risks criminalising anyone who seeks to protest about the climate and ecological emergency,” he said. The application was accepted for a directions hearing at 2pm on Thursday.
Since imposing the order, police have moved in to clear protesters who were camping in Trafalgar Square, then a much larger camp in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, to which many activists had moved after being removed from locations in Westminster they occupied last week. One of the applicants in the case is Ellie Chowns, a Green MEP who was among those arrested under the new order on Trafalgar Square on Monday night. She said she had not been part of the protests and had been arrested after asking questions of police officers about the legality of their actions.
As of 8am on Wednesday, there had been 1,642 arrests made over XR protests, according to the Met. Today, I aim to get arrested. It is the only real power climate protesters have | George Monbiot
The Green party MEP Ellie Chowns was among those arrested in Trafalgar Square on Monday night. She is one of several claimants in the judicial review. She said she had not been part of XR’s protests but was arrested after asking questions of police about the legality of their actions. She said: “I do plan to go to Trafalgar Square at lunchtime today to stand in solidarity with the Extinction Rebellion protesters because I believe that the right to protest peacefully in a public place is a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy.”
But she added: “I do plan to go to Trafalgar Square at lunchtime today to stand in solidarity with the Extinction Rebellion protesters because I believe that the right to protest peacefully in a public place is a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy. The Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, Laurence Taylor, denied that the force had banned protests and said it had every right to order the demonstrations in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere to end on Monday evening, after nine days. He said “significant disruption” had been caused to London and the Met was under such strain that it had had to draft in 500 officers from across the country.
“If that right is removed completely, if people can be cleared from the entire city when they are not doing anything except peacefully assembling to draw attention to the climate crisis – which is such an existential crisis that has got such a strong wave of public support behind it – if people can be banned from from peaceful assembly then that’s really quite worrying.” In spite of the order, hundreds of protesters gathered in Trafalgar Square on Wednesday afternoon for a people’s assembly, asking: “How do we respond to the silence of the government on the climate and ecological emergency in the face of the attempt to silence people with a London-wide ban on our peaceful assembly?”
Police were continuing their crackdown on Monday, demanding to see identification papers for anybody crossing Lambeth Bridge, and reportedly refusing to allow activists who had stayed in a church to leave unless they agreed to go home. Police issued attendees with notice of the section 14 and at one stage confiscated a packed-up tent.
XR has vowed to continue to protest despite the Met’s order. Dozens of mothers took part in a “nurse-in” outside the offices of Google in King’s Cross, central London, to protest against the tech firm’s funding of climate deniers. They blocked the main entrance of the building while singing and wearing sashes saying “Their future”. Among those who addressed the crowd was George Monbiot, the Guardian environment writer, who went on to block the road at the top of Whitehall along with a number of other activists including Jonathan Bartley, a co-leader of the Green party. Monbiot was later arrested.
The protest outside Google comes after a Guardian investigation revealed the company had made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington, despite its insistence that it supports political action on the crisis. Shortly after he was carried away by police, Monbiot said: “I feel we’ve got to make as much of a stand as we possibly can to prevent ecocide. Business as usual, politics as usual – that is ecocide. It’s the destruction of conditions that make life possible on this earth. I’m standing up against that and I’m proud to be arrested for that cause.”
Among hundreds of groups Google has listed on its website as beneficiaries of its political giving are more than a dozen organisations that have campaigned against climate legislation, questioned the need for action or actively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections. By 5pm, there were hundreds of people on Whitehall. Watching the action was James Brown, a Paralympic cyclist who had returned to London after being arrested for climbing on top of a passenger plane at City airport last Thursday. He said he had been able to mount the plane because, as a disabled person, he had been given priority access to board before other passengers.
Hester Montgomery Campbell joined the protest with her 16-week-old child, Marlowe: “Everyday that we don’t act, we’re borrowing time from our children’s lives. If we do nothing, they don’t have a future. This is not scaremongering, these are the facts. My daughter is nine, by the time she’s 20, we will have gone into runaway climate change. Maybe it doesn’t really hit people that these kids aren’t going to grow up and become old.” The Guardian's climate pledge 2019
Shortly afterwards, members of XR Youth protested outside Google-owned YouTube at the other side of the building. Five XR Youth members climbed on top of the entrance holding a banner reading: “YouTube stop platforming climate denial.” Brown said he was held in a cell for 67 hours after his protest. “I’m still recovering from that. It was quite an ordeal – especially when as a blind person they won’t give you any access to any reading materials, so it was quite a long and lonely stint.”
In a letter to YouTube, they said the platform, which has 1.9 billion users, has a responsibility to stop hosting “misleading and inherently dangerous” climate denial videos. They also cited a recent survey that showed more than half of teenagers in the US said they get their news from YouTube. Brown said he had become involved with environmental campaigning after his daughter told him of her concerns over biodiversity and the climate emergency. He said he had taken action because the government was not fulfilling its responsibilities to protect people.
A number of other protesters lay down to block traffic on nearby Pancras Road. He added: “We have to take it in our own hands and do something ourselves and the only means of bringing about radical social change that has been proven time and time again in history is non-violent direct action, and that is the reason I’m taking part in this.”
Daniel Walsh, 17, from XR Youth London, said: “YouTube should be telling the truth and not exploiting climate denial for it’s own benefit. Young people don’t pay attention to newspapers and often don’t even watch TV news. They consume news through social media. It falls upon every media corporation to get their act together and tell the truth.”
Taylor said the criminal justice system would be under strain for months from the scale of arrests. Activists detained after protests in April were still being processed, he added.
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