Quaker Meeting House suffers second Met Police raid
For the second time in less than a year, Metropolitan Police officers have raided Westminster Quaker Meeting House, arresting young activists.
On Thursday evening, 5 March, more than 10 officers entered the meeting house and arrested 15 supporters of Take Back Power - a nonviolent campaign group advocating for a wealth tax - who had hired the room for nonviolent direct action training.
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Quakers have been accustomed to oppression by the state for over 350 years
- Caroline Nursey, clerk of Westminster Quaker Meeting
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They were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit theft and taken to Brixton and Walworth police stations. One young man suffered a panic attack and was tended to by a paramedic.
The Met claimed the arrests were made to disrupt plans for mass shoplifting. No one arrested has yet been charged.
None of those arrested in the first raid on Westminster Meeting House a year ago, which drew outrage from across the faith spectrum, was ultimately charged with anything.
Oliver Robertson, head of witness and worship for Quakers in Britain, said: "Quakers don't think people should walk into a shop and take whatever they want.
“But we do support peaceful nonviolent direct action, including symbolic acts that draw attention to injustice, which is increasingly under threat as successive governments restrict our right to protest."
Caroline Nursey, clerk of Westminster Quaker Meeting, said: "The Metropolitan Police may want to intimidate us into contributing to the government's closing off of the right to protest.
“But Quakers have been accustomed to oppression by the state for over 350 years. We will continue to hire space to explicitly nonviolent groups, with appropriate checks in place, just as we always have."
That threat to protest rights is real and growing. The UK is the only country in western Europe rated "obstructed" for civic freedoms by Civicus, and a UN Special Rapporteur has criticised the UK's approach.
A new clause in the Crime and Policing Bill on "cumulative disruption," which is broad, vague, and dangerous, could sweep up campaigns on Palestine, climate justice, and peace.
Nursey said: “The Met's own statement shows that they were aware that the meeting was for training in nonviolent direct action, so this raid and the indiscriminate arrest of everyone present is shocking overreach."
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