UK Police Raid Quaker Meeting House and Arrest 6 Women

More than 20 police officers, some armed with Tasers, raided a gathering of the group Youth Demand at a Quaker meeting house and arrested six women.

Until this incident, no one had been arrested at a Quaker meeting house in the UK within living memory.

The meeting was intended to “share plans for non-violent civil resistance actions” due to happen in April. Youth Demand

Metropolitan Police said arrests were for suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, including actions to “shut down” London with such tactics as “swarming” and “roadblocks”. The Met said they had to intervene to prevent “serious disruption and other criminality.”

Mal Woolford, who is an elder at the Westminster meeting house, said the police were “ridiculously heavy-handed.”

“There were six very young women of about 20 years old, talking in a circle around a packet of breadsticks and a pot of houmous.”

Youth Demand wants the UK government to stop trade with Israel. They also want money raised from the “super rich and fossil fuel elite” to pay for mitigating the damage caused by burning fossil fuels.

In its statement about the raid, Quakers in Britain said, “Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet. Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage and prison reform.”

Five of the women arrested at the Quaker meeting house were released on bail. The sixth does not face further action from police or prosecutors.

Five additional arrests regarding Youth Demand were made the following day at addresses in London and Exeter. Those arrestees were released on bail.

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