Police in London have arrested leading members of the anti-monarchy group Republic. They wanted to express their dissatisfaction with Charles’s coronation.
Dissonance at the edge of the big celebration: Police in London have arrested leading members of the anti-monarchy group Republic as they protested along the procession route to the coronation of Charles III. prepared. “They arrested six of our organizers and confiscated hundreds of posters,” an activist told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
The police spoke of a “series of arrests” in central London. Among those arrested was Republic leader Graham Smith. He and several associates were taken into custody before they could hold up placards that read “Not My King.” “They don’t tell us why they arrested them or where they are being held,” the Republic activist said.
A camera team from the Alliance of European Republican Movements group was on site and asked a police officer the reason for the arrest. “You’re in custody and finished,” he said before walking away.
Smith said last week that the group had no plans to disrupt the actual procession. The protest should only show the world “that we are not a country of loyalists, that there is growing resistance”.
In addition to the opponents of the monarchy, at least 19 climate activists from the group Just Stop Oil were arrested in central London on Saturday, the group said. An AFP reporter said several activists were taken away in handcuffs by police on The Mall between Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square.
“Objects to be tied up” were confiscated
The authorities had recently been granted controversial special powers by the government to suppress protests. Just Stop Oil called the arrests a “massive authoritarian assault.” The activists “only wanted to show T-shirts and flags,” it said in a statement.
The police said on Twitter that there had been “a number of arrests” near the procession route on The Mall. They were carried out as part of an “important police action” in central London because of “suspicion of breach of the peace”.
Four people were also arrested near Trafalgar Square on suspicion of conspiracy to incite public nuisance. It was said that “anchoring objects” were confiscated.
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch described the arrests as “extremely alarming”. “It’s something we would expect in Moscow, not in London,” the organization said, criticizing the British government for its increasingly negative attitude towards demonstrations.
“Abolish the monarchy, not the freedom to demonstrate”
The arrests enraged other anti-monarchist protesters. Eva Smeeth, 19, cited the new police powers as the reason for her protest. “The law is so wrong, so yeah, I don’t feel like celebrating anything today,” she told AFP. The slogan on their poster read: “Abolish the monarchy, not the freedom to demonstrate.”
Another protester, who declined to be named, said: “I want to be able to say to children, ‘everyone is born equal’.” But that’s not possible “because we have this family that we raise above everyone else,” she added, referring to the British royal family.
Kieran Smith, 19, called it “repulsive” to live in a monarchy in the 21st century and “to have someone in control of our democratic process, who can change laws on a whim without our having a say “.
