‘They’ve taken away my freedom’: the truth about the UK state’s crackdown on protesters
have accused the police of “pure violence”. In the Hague last month, Extinction Rebellion activists planning a protest were detained under suspicion of “sedition”, and Greenpeace stated: “The right to protest is being increasingly restricted in the Netherlands.” In the US, a climate activist was killed in January at a protest camp protecting a forest from development. State authorities have said that a police officer shot in self-defence.
While we face nothing like that in the UK, it is hard to predict where the current criminalisation may take us. The clampdown we are seeing is already having a chilling effect. One man I spoke to, Oliver, a father from north London, says: “This pushback creates a climate in which XR and Just Stop Oil are characterised as criminal organisations. So people feel entitled to condemn us. They don’t even want to talk to us.
Melissa sounds far from despondent, after all, despite more than 100 days behind bars. When I ask what’s next for her, she tells me: “In terms of how I think, how I feel… it’s positive. I am still very much motivated to do whatever is needed. I will not be afraid.” And Jan Goodey, writing to me from prison, says: “I would have done the same if I’d known the sentence.”
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