PAPER PROTEST: 26 ARE CHARGED
Arrests after XR targets printing works
POLICE have charged 26 people after protesters blocked the delivery of some national newspapers.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) prevented delivery vans from leaving presses which publish the Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp’s titles, including The Sun, The Times, The Sun On Sunday and the Sunday
Times, and also The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail and Mail On Sunday.
The protest kept affected titles off the shelves of many newsagents on Saturday.
XR targeted Newsprinters’ printing works at Broxbourne in Hertfordshire and Knowsley, near Liverpool, overnight. Merseyside Police said it had charged 26 people, aged 19-60, following a protest at the “News International premises” in Knowsley on Friday night.
Police said all 26 have been granted bail under the condition they do not enter Merseyside or contact any News International staff.
More than 100 people used vehicles and bamboo lock-ons to block roads outside the Newsprinters’ works, with both protests continuing until Saturday afternoon.
Hertfordshire Police said they had taken 50 people into custody.
No arrests are understood to have been made after a similar protest at Newsprinters’ depot at Eurocentral near Motherwell. Police Scotland described the action as “peaceful”.
XR apologised to newsagents for the disruption but added it would not apologise to Murdoch, calling on him to “stop suppressing the truth about the climate crisis and profiting from the division your papers create”.
Government sources have confirmed Home Secretary Priti Patel wants to take a “fresh look” at how XR is classified under law after a stunt Boris Johnson deemed “completely unacceptable”.
The review could lead to XR being treated as an organised crime group, sources said, as part of a clampdown.