Forum Topic

Police Raid On Westminster Quaker Meeting House

It is with the greatest concern for Freedom and for democracy that I relay the news about the  Police raid on Westminster Quaker Meeting House which too place on March 27th 2025. The Police arrested six young people holding a meeting over concerns for the climate and Gaza. In the following statement, the Quakers say: "We strongly condemn the violation of our place of worship which is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo."Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some carrying tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House."They broke open the front door without warning or ringing the bell first, searching the whole building and arresting six women attending the meeting in a hired room."The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalised many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive.Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protestors' ability to defend their actions in court. All this means that there are fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power."Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet."Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage and prison reform."Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: "No-one has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house in living memory."This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest."Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy."https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/52036

Miles Thompson ● 106d16 Comments

Mr IxerThe article contains - 'Youth Demand had been making noises on social media about an attempt to ‘shut down London’ in April. (Shutting down London sounds a bit ambitious, but who knows? They might well have succeeded in blocking a street or two and making some people late for work.) They have, apparently, been associated with the old red-paint-on-the-MOD dodge. The same organisation picketed Sir Keir Starmer’s home – which rightly saw some of its members had up on public order offences. Civil disobedience by very definition involves breaking laws and taking the consequences, that said, and opinions vary widely on where the line of acceptability should be drawn'.My view on 'drawing the line' is that I do not want my City and personal convenience impacted by a load of juveniles playing at revolutionaries and freedom fighters especially as they seem to take a scatter gun approach to what they protest about and their equivalence.Other than the fact they chose the current leftist issues de nos jours - climate change and of course attacking Israel at every opportunity.And I do wonder how they can be involved in such political activities and yet still hold down a job.  You might not be impacted by their actions and they may sound trivial at the moment.But their severity and consequences can grow.From the closing of roads and preventing people taking up hospital appointments on the one hand to the pro-Palestinian Islamist bombings and murders at the other extreme.In my view the police have a prime duty to my safety to keep them under control rather than worry too much over the curtailment of their right to protest.I wonder if any of them or yourself indeed have read about the genocide happening in Sudan carried out by numerous fundamentalist Muslim gangs ? Will they bring London to a halt over these crimes against humanity ?"The siege of Khartoum has lifted. Left behind are scenes of unimaginable horror" - Nesrine Malik in today's Guardian.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/31/khartoum-sudan-war-capital-horrorMan made destruction and terror that puts any supposed Israeli actions totally in perspective.Yet still Israel takes the rap.

John Hawkes ● 104d

Mr ThompsonAs I have already made clear, the meeting being held was not one organised by the Quakers, noted for their passive and peaceful protests, but one organised on its premises by a juvenile group of activists called 'Youth Demand'.This outfit bills 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 police incident has been described as 'six members of a direct action group called Youth Demand have been arrested during a meeting to discuss plans to ‘shut down London’ next month, accusing the government of ‘facilitating genocide’ in Gaza.Officers raided the gathering at a Quaker Meeting House on Thursday, in what’s believed to be the first time their meeting spaces have been raided in living memory, though the group are not affiliated with the Quakers.The six were arrested on suspicion of ‘conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.’In a statement, the Met said they had a responsibility to prevent activity “that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality”'.Not quite the passive and peaceful Quaker-like protest but direction action to 'shut down London'.We fund the police to stop our City 'being shut down' by anybody let alone a group that seems to have and has conflated two unrelated issues - stopping the UK supporting Israel in its war against Palestinian extremists and stopping the UK developing its need energy resources.What do these issues have in common ?It's funny isn't it that these dim witted youths never feel obliged to link our energy policy with a call for trade restrictions against China for its attempted genocide of the Uighurs.Nor to strengthen those against Iran for the appalling crimes it carries out against its own people especially women and gays and the antisemitic Islamic racism it sponsors across most of the Middle East.No, its always the Jews that need to get it in the neck.Just more examples of the ignorance of much of British youth and its festering and growing antisemitism fostered by the many Islamists now residing in this country.

John Hawkes ● 104d

Mr Thompson' ’The only resistance I could put up was to make tea and drink it in front of them without offering them any.’'My reading about this incident was not that the police were trying to stop a meeting by Quakers but that a Quaker meeting room was being used by an activist protest group called 'Youth Demand'.'Youth Demand is a British environmental activist and political activist group which opposes new fossil fuel licensing and production agreements by the British government for drilling in the North Sea and British arms exports to Israel'. Wiki.https://youthdemand.org/ is the site for the West Putney Pro-Palestine Just Stop Oil activists to sign up to assist them.It also describes other direct action protests they have been involved in.The Met Police said the force understood the importance of the right to protest but added that Youth Demand had stated an intention to "shut down" London during April."JOIN A MONTH OF DAILY COORDINATED ACTIONS IN LONDON THIS APRIL!" is promoted on their website."We have a responsibility to intervene to prevent activity that crosses the line from protest into serious disruption and other criminality," a (police) spokesman said."On Thursday, officers raided a Youth Demand planning meeting where those in attendance were plotting their April action."Six people were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance."A further five arrests for the same offence were made on Friday, 28 March. Four of the arrests were at addresses in London and one in Exeter."Here is what the group write on their website.Notice the usual conflation of anti-Israel pro-Palestine propaganda and the attack on the production and use of fossil fuels."The Government is engaging in absolute evil. They are enabling genocide in Palestine by sending money (?) and arms to Israel. They are contributing to the murder of billions (!) to keep fossil fuel profits flowing.Young people are stepping up to resist this right now.We are demanding that the Government must:1) Stop trade with Israel: impose a trade embargo on Israel2) Make the rich pay: raise £1trillion by 2030 from the super rich and fossil fuel elite to pay damages to communities and countries harmed by fossil fuel burning.Until these demands are met we will be in non-violent resistance against a rigged political system and the people with blood on their hands".This reads to me as sufficient for the police and government  to see this as a threat of insurrection not peaceful protest  and to take whatever steps that have legal backing to prevent it.However were they to have candidates stand in the next General Election and win seats in Parliament then of course this would be a different matter.

John Hawkes ● 105d