If you’re a far-right racist who happens to have stumbled upon the Canary, and you want an example of two-tier policing, then look no further than the fact that four, non-violent Just Stop Oil supporters have just been arrested for planning to delay planes at Manchester airport.
Just Stop Oil: subject to pre-crime arrests, again
Four Just Stop Oil supporters have been arrested after an operation by the Greater Manchester Police. In recent weeks Just Stop Oil has been taking nonviolent action with groups internationally to demand governments establish a Fossil Fuel Treaty, to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030.
Cops arrested them for near Manchester airport on suspicion of conspiring to cause a public nuisance. That is, they were planning to non-violently disrupt Manchester Airport. Police said it was because Just Stop Oil’s actions “would have brought significant delays”.
What a shame that police oddly didn’t have any intel on the far-right, neo-Nazi race riots – including pogroms and attempted murders – that have been going on for days. Yet, they manage to find the time to nick four people because they might have delayed some planes.
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:
Just Stop Oil supporters are always fully accountable for our actions and as such the four arrested today will accept any legal consequences.
Accountability is a core feature of nonviolence, which is at the centre of Just Stop Oil’s mission. We take action because we want a safe and stable society. Delivering a Fossil Fuel Treaty that ends oil and gas by 2030 is an essential step for our Government to prevent massive disorder.
The rioting and racist attacks that have occurred over the weekend are a foretaste of what will come as climate breakdown progresses and puts unbearable pressures on society. The root causes of these riots are clear. Austerity; manipulative far-right agitators in the streets, the media, and in parliament; and the liberals that fail to challenge their agenda. Imagine when food scarcity, home-destroying floods, and global collapse are mixed in?
Just Stop Oil supporters will continue to do whatever is nonviolently possible to demand a Fossil Fuel Treaty and to defend humanity from the consequences of climate breakdown.
Oil Kills
One of those arrested this morning is Ella Ward, who said:
We are living right now in the middle of climate breakdown and we have pushed the world beyond its physical limits. People are already dying and millions more stand to be murdered by a small number of rich people prioritising profit over life. This government must make a plan with other countries to phase out fossil fuels by 2030. We need a Fossil Fuel Treaty to Just Stop Oil.
I know I may be sent to prison and I know I could face many years inside. This fact terrifies me, but it doesn’t alarm me as much as the impending societal collapse and the loss of everything we know and love, which is what we are facing if we don’t take immediate and meaningful action against this crisis. Continuing to extract and burn fossil fuels in the middle of a climate emergency is a violent act against my generation and all future generations.
The Oil Kills international uprising has been taking action at airports around the world.
As the Canary has documented, 21 groups across 12 countries have taken action at 21 airports so far.
Recent days have seen the world’s four hottest days ever observed by scientists, dozens have been killed in the raging floodwaters and massive mudslides triggered by Typhoon Gaemi, whilst hundreds have been killed in mudslides in Ethiopia and India. Half of Jasper in Canada has been reduced to ash.
About 3.6 billion people have endured temperatures that would have been exceedingly rare in a world without burning fossil fuels and other human activities, according to an analysis by scientists at the group Climate Central.
Scientists are warning we are currently in the midst of a climate anomaly that exceeds all previous predictions. In July of last year, the average global temperature jumped by around 0.2 C. This is the amount of warming the climate models were predicting for an entire decade. It’s as though it was suddenly 2034.
“What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records,” said Carlo Buontempo, the director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Solidarity with political prisoners
Meanwhile, on Saturday 3 August hundreds have gathered in Parliament Square in solidarity with the 21 political prisoners currently incarcerated for demanding an end to the fossil fuel era, and all political prisoners fighting for change in the UK and abroad, including two imprisoned for taking action with Palestine Action:
Just Stop Oil has been taking action with groups internationally to demand governments establish a fossil fuel treaty, to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030.
At midday, supporters of Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion, Defend our Juries and Fossil Free London, gathered at the Gandhi statue in Parliament Square:L
The crowd heard speeches from a range of speakers, including comedian Robin Ince and Areeba Hamid from Greenpeace. The crowd also heard messages from those currently in prison. Attendees could be seen holding signs which read ‘You can’t lock up the Truth’ and ‘No Justice when Juries are Denied the Truth’:
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:
As ministers warn us of overflowing prisons, we have seen the number of nonviolent political prisoners imprisoned for taking action on the climate, rise to 21 in recent days. The state will always find space to imprison those who threaten the interests of fossil capital, whilst releasing violent offenders to make room. This demonstrates where their priorities lie.
However, in doing so, those who are incarcerating the people raising the alarm about the catastrophic threats humanity faces, are demonstrating their ignorance of the mechanics of social change. Those who study history will tell you that where you imprison one for demanding necessary change, ten will take their place.
Just Stop Oil: ‘what are you really outraged about?’
The spokesperson went on to talk about the state’s clamping down on the group:
The repression that Just Stop Oil is facing is a demonstration of our efficacy as a movement. We have won our initial demand of ‘no new oil and gas’, and demonstrated to the world that nonviolent civil resistance works.
It is time for every one of us to consider our priorities and take action to demand world leaders act to protect our loved-ones from the worst effects of climate breakdown. We need to demand a fossil fuel treaty- an international legally binding agreement to phase down fossil fuel extraction and burning by 2030.
The crowd heard words from some of those incarcerated including Cressie Gethin. What she wrote from her cell could not be more apt right now:
For everyone here today I want to ask you a question. What are you outraged about?… We are in prison because we dared to point the finger at the real source of the harm- our profit-hungry economic system, driven by fossil fuels.
People at the bottom of the ladder are turned against one another. Guards recruited to exercise power over people just like them. Citizens policing each other. Whilst the elites who benefit from this destructive economic system are subject to no accountability at all.
That system has been to trial and found guilty, but it has never been sentenced. I wouldn’t wish punishment on anyone, including the elites perpetuating destruction. But for there to be no accountability, no means to compel change, when every piece of evidence, every expert and our intuitions are screaming out for it; be outraged about that.
Featured image and additional images via Just Stop Oil
