ECO MOB BRINGS CHAOS TO CAPITAL
Thousands of middle-class protesters vow to keep going for two weeks
RADICAL eco-protesters paralysed London’s roads and vandalised oil firm Shell’s headquarters yesterday as they started a two-week demonstration.
Commuters were left infuriated after thousands of largely middleclass activists created human barricades at five major landmarks across the capital and brought traffic to a standstill.
Numbers were swelled by hundreds of youngsters who joined in during their Easter school holidays. Left-wing campaign group Extinction Rebellion said the environmental protests could escalate over the next fortnight. Three men and two women were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage after a revolving glass door at the Shell building on the Thames was smashed.
The group said it aimed to cause at least £6,000 of damage so that the crime was serious enough to be tried by a jury in a crown court, providing another platform for its cause.
Other activists were taken away by police after gluing themselves to the door, sloshing oil on the building and climbing scaffolding to spray graffiti slogans. Simon Bramwell 47, from Stroud in Gloucestershire, an ex-builder and cofounder of Extinction Rebellion, said he glued himself to the building to ‘prevent crimes against humanity’.
Katerina Hasapopoulos, a mother-ofthree from Stroud, also glued herself to the front of the building and declared: ‘Shell cares only for profit and I have three beautiful young girls who I want to see grow up to have a future.’
Thousands of people also gathered at Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square, Marble Arch and Piccadilly Circus, causing human road blocks to stop traffic while others lay down under trucks queuing in the tailbacks.
Police used their legal powers to shut down the protest at Marble Arch at 7pm because ‘serious disruption was being caused to communities in London’. The order will last until 7pm today.
Protesters are demanding the Government introduces a legally-binding policy to reduce carbon emission to net zero by 2025. They say they will continue to block key roads in London for up to two weeks and ‘escalate civil disobedience’ if demands are not met.
In what was described as a ‘festival of action’, cars were forced to take diversions around Waterloo Bridge while activists turned it into a ‘garden’.
Dozens of potted trees were brought and ‘planted’ on the bridge along with rows of herbs and flowers.
Speeches were made from a stage and groups of people sat in the sun on picnic blankets.
In a speech, Professor Jem Bendell, from the University of Cumbria, told the crowd: ‘Today will be beautiful – but it might also be stressful, especially as the rebellion unfolds.’
The protests are part of a global campaign which is expected to see protesters in at least 80 cities in more than 33 countries hold similar demonstrations on environmental issues.
Scotland Yard said it had ‘appropriate policing plans’ for the demonstrations and officers from across the force will ‘support the public order operation during the coming weeks’.
Police advised people travelling around London in the coming days to allow extra time for their journey in the event of more disruption.