Latest news with #AreebaHamid
The Independent
03-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Greenpeace accuses police of ‘abuse of powers' over protest arrests
New research indicates that less than three per cent of all protest arrests by the Metropolitan Police result in charges, leading campaigners to call for an end to anti-protest measures. Data obtained by Greenpeace reveals that the Metropolitan Police made 638 arrests for conspiracy to cause public nuisance over the past six years, with only 18 of these resulting in charges. Greenpeace UK's co-executive director, Areeba Hamid, criticised police for routinely arresting protesters for crimes they rarely charge them with, describing it as an 'abuse of their powers and an assault on the right to protest'. The sharp increase in protest arrests since 2019 coincides with major climate demonstrations and the implementation of new anti-protest legislation, such as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. A coalition of environmental and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International UK and Greenpeace, is launching a nationwide campaign to defend the right to protest and urge the home secretary to reverse restrictive measures.
The Independent
03-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Police accused of ‘assault on right to protest' after less than 3% of nuisance arrests result in charges
Less than three per cent of all protest arrests result in charges, according to new research, as campaigners are calling for an end to anti-protest measures. Data obtained by Greenpeace via Freedom of Information requests shows that only 18 arrests out of a total of 638 made by the Metropolitan Police for conspiracy to cause public nuisance over the last six years have resulted in charges. Their research also showed an almost tenfold rise in the number of arrests in the capital since 2019. There were 67 arrests and charges for conspiring to cause a public nuisance between 2012 and the end of 2018, compared with more than 600 arrests and 18 charges since 2019, as the rate of arrests resulting in charges dropped from 12 per cent to less than three per cent. Greenpeace UK's co-executive director, Areeba Hamid, accused police of 'routinely dragging protesters off the streets for a crime they almost always fail to charge them with', which she said 'amounts to an abuse of their powers and an assault on the right to protest'. She added: 'Arresting law-abiding people because they're politically inconvenient is a frightening development in any democracy, and is a direct result of the government's instinct to shut down free speech and prevent people from standing up for issues they care deeply about.' Campaigners noted that the sharp increase in arrests coincided with Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future bringing thousands more people onto the streets of London in calls for action to tackle climate change. The findings come as four leading environmental and human rights organisations - Amnesty International UK, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Liberty - are starting a nationwide campaign to stand up for the right to protest, as they call on the home secretary to restore people's right to express themselves by reversing anti-protest measures in two key pieces of legislation passed since 2022. Khalid Abdallah, an actor from The Crown, was interviewed under caution by police in March after his role in a pro-Palestinian protest in January. As part of the campaign to stand up for the right to protest, he said: 'I think a lot of people don't realise that the crackdown on protest isn't just about tougher laws on disruptive civil disobedience, it's about creating a climate of intimidation. The right to speak out against the actions of the government is an important test of whether you live in a free, democratic country. 'I have lived in countries where rights we hold dear in Britain do not exist, and my family has paid the price for speaking out. So I did not expect Britain to be the country where I would first be investigated by police for my participation in a public protest. For six months, I lived under the threat of being charged, until it was confirmed the police would not take further action. Clearly, these statistics show I'm not an isolated case.' A Met Police spokesperson said: 'We recognise the importance of the right to protest, however where protest crosses the line into criminality, we have a duty to intervene using the powers available to us. 'The threshold for arrest is reasonable suspicion that an offence has occurred. The threshold to charge someone is significantly higher, with officers needing to show that there is enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction at court. 'Proving that an individual has conspired with others to cause a public nuisance, to that standard, is particularly challenging. This is reflected in the limited number of charges for that offence.' Suspicion of conspiracy to cause nuisance is an offence under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which is used by police to arrest protesters. The bill caused controversy when it passed, with a number of 'Kill the Bill' rallies across the UK to fight against it. The campaigners have also asked ministers to strike out certain protest clauses in the Crime and Policing Bill, which is making its way through parliament. One clause that has caused particular concern is one which allows police to request that people remove items used to conceal their identity if certain authorisations are in place, which could incur a maximum penalty of one month in prison, a £1,000 fine, or both. Written evidence submitted by Big Brother Watch, Liberty, Privacy International, and Stop Watch called these new clauses 'unnecessary' and warned they could 'significantly threaten our right to protest safely and freely.'
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Met police accused of ‘assault on right to protest' after tenfold rise in nuisance law arrests
Police in London have been accused of abusing their powers to curb protest after research found that less than 3% of arrests for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance in the past five years resulted in a prosecution. The research also found an almost tenfold rise in the number of arrests in the capital for the offence, most commonly used to target activists, since 2019 when Extinction Rebellion set off a wave of climate activism. Campaigners said the findings showed police misusing the law to shut down protest with a power that allowed them to intimidate protesters by placing them in pretrial custody, impose onerous bail conditions and collect their DNA and fingerprints. But police said they had a duty to intervene 'where protest crosses the line into criminality' and that the difference in the thresholds of evidence between arrest and charge explained the discrepancy found in the research. Areeba Hamid, a co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, which carried out the research, said: 'The fact that police are routinely dragging protesters off the streets for a crime they almost always fail to charge them with amounts to an abuse of their powers and an assault on the right to protest. 'Arresting law-abiding people because they're politically inconvenient is a frightening development in any democracy and is a direct result of the government's instinct to shut down free speech and prevent people standing up for issues they care deeply about.' Broadly, the offence of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance involves a group of people agreeing to take part in an act that, whether it takes place or not, could cause serious harm, disruption, or obstruction to the public. Since 2022, when the offence was placed on a statutory basis, it has carried a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. It is one of the most serious protest offences, and was used last year to convict four Just Stop Oil activists who were jailed for up to five years – the longest sentence ever for non-violent protest. Greenpeace used freedom of information requests to find out how many people were arrested on suspicion of committing the offence each year between 2012 and March 2025. They found that between 2012 and 2018, 67 arrests were made, of which eight – or 12% – resulted in charges. In 2019, the year that Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets in protest over climate breakdown, there was an increase in the use of the power, with 205 arrests that year alone. From then until March 2025 there were a total of 638 arrests under the power, of which just 18 – 2.8% – resulted in people going to court. Raj Chada, a partner at the law firm Hodge Jones & Allen, who is one of the UK's leading protest defence lawyers, said he was not surprised by the figures. 'There was a massive growth in arrests for public nuisance in the latter days of XR … which were previously arrested for obstruction of the highway, and the vast majority of those cases never went anywhere.' Chada said the offence, which then existed only under common law, gave police powers to arrest and detain protesters as well as to take DNA, fingerprints and photos – powers they did not have under more minor public order offences. 'It was a way for police control for demonstrations, because you could put bail conditions more easily on people to prevent them coming into central London, you could potentially put people into custody,' he said. 'You would put them on bail for several months, wait until the XR action was over, and then either no-further-action it or charge them with a more minor offence like obstruction of the highway.' After a lull in protest activity during the Covid pandemic, arrests for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance increased again in 2021 with the Insulate Britain campaign. Greenpeace's data showed that in 2021 the Metropolitan police made 272 arrests under the power, as protesters disrupted traffic on roads leading to the capital's orbital motorway, the M25. No charges were laid that year. The following year as part of a wider legislative crackdown against protest, the offence was placed on a statutory basis by the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, a change that Chada said made it easier for prosecutors to bring charges. However, except for 12 cases the year the law was passed, including Roger Hallam and his fellow Just Stop Oil activists handed severe sentences last year over their plot to block the M25, no one has been charged under the legislation since. Tim Crosland, the director of Plan B, an environmental litigation charity, who campaigns on behalf of protesters facing prosecution, said: 'The Greenpeace research confirms what we've witnessed directly these last few years. Part of the … crackdown on civil society is the deliberate inflation of grounds of arrest. 'This is both an intimidation tactic in itself and also unlocks powers of search and seizure under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, enabling the police to seize phones and laptops and to conduct dawn raids on those exercising their democratic rights.' The Met police said: 'The threshold for arrest is reasonable suspicion that an offence has occurred. The threshold to charge someone is significantly higher, with officers needing to show that there is enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction at court. Proving that an individual has conspired with others to cause a public nuisance, to that standard, is particularly challenging. This is reflected in the limited number of charges for that offence.'
The Herald Scotland
30-04-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Huge Donald Trump protest appears near Turnberry hotel and golf course
The artwork took several hours to draw out in the sand overnight by a team from arts organisation 'Sand in Your Eye' and Greenpeace UK. It shows a giant portrait of Mr Trump alongside the message: 'Time to resist – fight the billionaire takeover'. The first 100 days of his second administration has seen the US leave the Paris Climate agreement and he has offered the Alaskan wilderness to oil drilling. Other environmental complaints include opening up the Pacific to industrial fishing and he wants to launch deep sea mining in US and international waters. Read More He has also ended investment in clean energy and boosted coal, oil and fossil gas by weakening regulations and removing obstacles for the fossil fuel industry. Areeba Hamid, co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: 'During his first 100 days President Trump has been actively working to dismantle and weaken environmental protections and attack those who fight to protect nature and our shared climate, putting the corporate profits of his billionaire friends ahead of people and the planet. It's time to resist the billionaire takeover of our rights and freedoms. 'Trump's biggest allies are a group of unelected billionaires, including the fossil fuel company CEOs who are knowingly burning the planet, polluting our waters, and hurting communities around the world. No one voted for these corporate bullies to end free speech, but they will stop at nothing to keep their oil and gas empire alive – even weaponising the legal system to crush dissent and silence environmental activism.' 'For the billionaires and big oil companies this is not just another source of money. They want to silence all critics and any protests against the core issue with their business: fossil fuels that are causing the climate crisis and environmental destruction.' Greenpeace UK activists have also been subvertising bus stops around the US embassy in Nine Elms, London, with posters carrying the same messaging.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Greenpeace U.K. boss arrested over protest at U.S. Embassy in London
London — One of the heads of Greenpeace U.K. was among six activists arrested Thursday after dumping red dye into a pond outside the U.S. Embassy in London, the group said. The activists were protesting continued weapons sales by the United States to Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza. "We took this action because U.S. weapons continue to fuel an indiscriminate war that's seen bombs dropped on schools and hospitals, entire neighborhoods blasted to rubble, and tens of thousands of Palestinian lives obliterated," Areeba Hamid, co-executive director at Greenpeace U.K., said in a statement, confirming that co-executive director Will McCallum was among those detained. "As the biggest supplier of weapons to the Israeli military, the U.S. government bears a heavy responsibility for the horrors unfolding in Gaza." London's Metropolitan Police said five arrests had taken place outside the U.S. embassy at 7:30 a.m. local time (2:30 a.m. Eastern) after officers noticed people putting dye into the pond. The reason for the discrepancy in the number of people arrested was not immediately clear. "The group made off but officers responded quickly and carried out a search of the area," the police said. "Five people have so far been arrested nearby on suspicion of criminal damage and conspiracy to cause criminal damage." The police said there was no security breach of the U.S. embassy grounds during the incident. "The pond is accessible via a public footpath. There was no breach or attempted breach of the secure perimeter of the site," they said. Mahmoud Khalil immigration judge demands evidence or says case will be dropped Here's why the stock market ended the day in the red after morning gains House narrowly passes budget framework resolution
