• 320 people occupy the road outside Southwark Crown Court for 90 minutes to protest the ongoing assault on democratic civil rights.
• People come from diverse groups and movements, including Defend Our Juries, Just Stop Oil, Palestine Action and Greenpeace.
• Silent protesters hold 100 images of political prisoners, including Mohandas Gandhi, Emmeline Pankhurst, Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis and Julian Assange.
• Authors Monique Roffey, Natasha Walter and Toby Litt are among the sign-holders.
• Campaign seeks meeting with Attorney General to discuss silencing and jailing of activists and sinister influence of industry lobbyists such as Lord Walney.
• Inside the court Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland receive 24 and 20 month prison sentences for taking nonviolent action in defence of life.

Today from 12.30-2pm outside Southwark Crown Court, the Free Political Prisoners campaign held its first in an escalating series of nonviolent civil disobedience protests to demand the release from prison of climate and Palestine activists, some of whom have been jailed for four or five years.

The campaign also seeks the removal of Lord Walney, lobbyist for the arms and oil industries, from the office of ‘Independent adviser to the Government on political violence and disruption’. 

320 members of groups including Defend Our Juries, Just Stop Oil, Palestine Action, Extinction Rebellion, Animal Rising and Greenpeace transformed the road into a photographic exhibition of political prisoners past and present in the UK and around the world.

The images included people who are currently imprisoned in the UK for taking direct action to protect life, over climate breakdown and Gaza. Following lobbying from Lord Walney and others, and trials in which they have been prevented from explaining why they did what they did, some have been jailed for four or five years. Others are being held in jail on remand without any trial at all.

Inside the court, Judge Christopher Hehir, who sentenced Just Stop Oil activists the Whole Truth Five to record sentences in July this year, went on to hand further prison sentences to Phoebe Plummer (2 years) and Anna Holland (20 months) for throwing soup over Van Gough’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in October 2022. He also handed 12 month community orders to Chiara Sarti and Daniel Hall, for slow marching in a West London road for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile at Isleworth Crown Court, ten Just Stop Oil members arrested cycling around the Heathrow perimeter fence in July had a plea hearing on charges of conspiracy to cause public nuisance. Five of the ten remain remanded in custody, having now spent over two months in prison without trial.

Following the day’s events, there are now a total of 41 peaceful protesters currently locked up in the UK, in the midst of the prisons crisis. Of these 20 are being held on remand, despite posing no threat of violence or flight risk and having been convicted on no crime, and 21 have received sentences of a year or more (9 of these for multiple years) for nonviolent protest actions in defence of life.

Authors Monique Roffey, Natasha Walter and Toby Litt were among those holding signs at the protest outside the court. Walter’s sign depicted her father Nicolas Walter, jailed in 1966 for calling out British support for the Vietnam War. Her grandfather Georg Oppenheim was also a political prisoner, jailed and tortured by the Nazis in 1933 as a Jewish communist.

Independent lawyers advised participating groups that Friday’s protest outside Southwark Crown Court was lawful and within limits set by the Supreme Court in 2021, in the case of Director of Public Prosecutions vs. Zeigler and others, which involved peaceful protesters disrupting an arms trade fair at ExCeL London in 2017. Protesters were nevertheless advised to prepare themselves to be arrested given the political climate and worsening erosion of protest rights.

The campaign’s main demand is that the Attorney General agrees to a public meeting, to discuss ending the silencing and jailing of those taking peaceful action to prevent mass loss of life and to uphold international law. Further demands include freeing the 41 peaceful protesters currently held in UK prisons and removing paid lobbyist Lord Walney as Independent Government Advisor.

The campaign is gaining traction with tens of thousands of members of the public signing a petition to end repressive sentencing for protestors. In a month’s time, on 24 October, campaigners will up the ante by bringing the photographic protest to the Attorney General’s Office at the Ministry of Justice on Petty France.

Tim Crosland from Defend Our Juries comments:

“The recent trend of imprisoning people taking acts of conscience is unprecedented in the UK. Historically, we are not a country that locks up those raising the most pressing moral questions of our time.

“The arms and oil industries are corrupting democracy to preserve their vast profits, including by drafting and lobbying laws to silence and jail those who resist them. We’re urging people to be alert to what’s going on. This affects everybody.”

ENDS

For further info: Howard 07459055152; Tim 07795316164; Paddy 07958275270

High res image library

About Defend our Juries:

Defend Our Juries has the following aims:

1. to bring to public attention the programme to undermine trial by jury in the context of those taking action to expose government dishonesty and corporate greed
2. to raise awareness of the vital constitutional safeguard that juries can acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience, irrespective of a judge’s direction that there is no available defence (a principle also known as ‘jury equity’ or ‘jury nullification‘)
3. to ensure that all defendants have the opportunity to explain their actions when their liberty is at stake, including by explaining their motivations and beliefs.