UK climate activists face prison for blocking highways
Source: AP
LONDON (AP) Environmental activists who have repeatedly blocked Britains busiest highway face possible imprisonment after a judge granted an injunction against the protesters, Britains transport secretary said Wednesday.
Members of campaign group Insulate Britain have shut down parts of Londons M25 highway, which circles the British capital, five times in just over a week by sitting on the ground, painting the name of their group on the road and raising placards in front of traffic. Some have also targeted other highways.
Police have arrested dozens of the protesters, who demand the government improve home insulation to reduce emissions from heating and powering homes.
Invading a motorway is reckless & puts lives at risk, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps wrote on Twitter. I asked National Highways to seek an injunction against M25 protestors which a judge granted last night.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-climate-environment-and-nature-environment-c234f0b20e0389fbbb21b64aff43223e
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Britain's homes, and that's basically all extremist actions can be hoped to accomplish before more people turn off and start demanding the government take care of them.
cab67
(2,963 posts)Protests should draw attention to a cause. But when emergency vehicles can't get through to their destination because a major thoroughfare is unexpectedly closed, people don't blame those who triggered the protest. They blame the protesters.
A major interstate in my town was blocked twice in recent years - after the 2016 election, and as part of a BLM protest last year. The first one prevented people from visiting dying loved ones in a hospital and caused several people to miss flights at the airport, some of whom were travelling for family emergencies. At least one person claims to have not gotten a job because she missed the flight that would have taken her to her interview. I'm sure none of the protesters actually wanted people to miss a major milestone event or lose out on a life-changing opportunity, but these things happened nonetheless, and that's what the the news media focused on. The tragedy of the 2016 election was momentarily forgotten because of the negative attention drawn to the protesters themselves.
The second one led to the use of tear gas by police. In this case, I had friends on both sides.
Some were part of the protest blocking the street. I believe wholeheartedly in the cause driving that protest, and had I been in town that day, I probably would have been part of it. But I also know one of the officers who fired tear gas. He was traumatized by the event - he, too, knew some of the protesters and was sympathetic to the cause. These were his neighbors, and they were protesting real injustice. Had he not been in uniform, he too might have joined the protest - at least until it moved to the freeway.
The protest had started near my university campus, and everyone knew it was going to happen, but at some point, some of the protesters decided to head over to the freeway and block it. But this wasn't planned in advance, and police have to know if a protest is going to block a major road. That way, they can close the road and re-route traffic. This is necessary to allow ambulances and firefighting trucks to operate. Moreover, the protest was at night, and there are some hills on that stretch of the interstate. It would have been entirely too easy for a truck driver to not realize what was happening until too late, causing an accident that could have killed people. This does, of course, reduce the impact of a protest intended to be spontaneous - but physical reality does sometimes step in the way of ideals.
The police in this case weren't telling anyone to disperse or stop protesting. They were asking them to move the protest off the interstate. No one seemed interested in complying, leading to the deployment of tear gas.
I have mixed feelings about the tear gas itself, but in my opinion, this wasn't a matter of overly militarized police flexing its collective muscle to intimidate. It was a matter of making sure a protest didn't lead to unintended tragedy. In that sense, I can see the justification. Furthermore, other BLM protests in my community that didn't block traffic received a lot of attention, nearly all of it positive - it wasn't necessary to block traffic to make the point.
Now that some states more or less allow people to plow into protesters on the street, this sort of protest is even more likely to end badly.
Seriously - ask yourself: if you missed a flight to a job interview, or missed a wedding, or was unable to say goodbye to a dying relative, would you direct your ire at those who create inequity in society? Or would you blame the boneheads who kept you from getting you to your destination?
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)... and it's a bad idea in on the M25. Now they'll be ridiculed and their "kooky" ideas dismissed because of their personal extremism and unlawful actions.