30+ Met police smash down Quaker meeting house doors to raid anti-genocide gathering

Religious group and anti-genocide campaigners condemn violent intrusion and baseless arrests

Quakers in Britain have strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship by a gang of Met Police officers last night, which they describe as “a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo”.

The police, some armed with tasers, forced their way into the Quakers’ Westminster Meeting House and arrested six women campaigners who were meeting peacefully in a hired room – the first time in living memory that someone has been arrested in a Quaker meeting house, according to the religious group.

Police smashed the front door of the building without warning or attempting to gain peaceful entry first by simply ringing the bell. Young people’s anti-genocide group Youth Demand have also condemned the ‘insane’ assault on free speech and peaceful assembly, in a video statement by one of the young women at the event – who reported that police had seized laptops and phones despite only being there for supposed ‘conspiracy to commit public nuisance’. Three of the women remained in custody this afternoon:

The Quakers said:

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 protesters’ 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.”

The Starmer regime is waging an ever-escalating ‘lawfare’ war against peaceful protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza or to save the environment. Last night’s raid did not apparently invoke the Terrorism Act 2000 to seize and access the victims’ devices, but did so anyway. In many cases, the Terrorism Act is being misused to demonise peaceful protesters, with many arrested and those charged facing prison sentences of up to fourteen years as Starmer tries to silence resistance to Israel’s war crimes and demonise environmental protest while farmers who block roads and damage property in their protests remain unmolested.

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