Just Stop Oil supporters will march today in solidarity with people affected by the government’s anti-democratic assault on our legitimate right to protest. Just Stop Oil is demanding an end to any new fossil fuel projects in the UK. [1]
At 12pm Just Stop Oil supporters will gather in Parliament Square, before marching through Whitehall and past the Canadian Embassy, towards Portland Place.
Once at Portland Place, Just Stop Oil supporters will gather outside BBC headquarters to join the protest march and rally for Palestine, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The event commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Nakba – or Catastrophe – when over 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly removed from over 500 villages and cities in historic Palestine, never to return. The Nakba continues today. From Jerusalem to Gaza, via the Naqab, Israel continues its policy of human rights abuses, displacing and oppressing the indigenous Palestinian population. The Palestinian people need our solidarity now more than ever.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign has organised the event with the support of the Stop the War Coalition, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. [2]
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:
“This government is engaged in a wholesale assault on human rights here and around the world: migrants rights, workers rights, protest rights – nothing is sacred. The Public Order Act has criminalised peaceful dissent. Anyone speaking up about the injustices wrought on Palestinians or calling out the corruption and criminality of the UK government, risks arrest. Ordinary people must step up to resist imperialism and authoritarianism and we must demand no new fossil fuels if we are to minimise the effects of climate collapse.”
“Palestinians are among the most vulnerable people on earth to the effects of climate collapse, and in the daily struggle to survive in an apartheid state, they have no capacity to protect themselves against what is coming.”
One of those taking action this morning, Sean Irish, 26, a former green energy worker from London, said:
“We stand united with our friends from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and we support everyone who steps up to resist the Public Order Act, which has effectively banned peaceful protest in the UK.”
“At the same time as crushing legitimate dissent in the UK, this criminal government is supporting apartheid in Palestine. The same financial institutions that are funding new fossil fuel projects in the UK, are also funding the manufacture of weapons used to repress the Palestinian people and indiscriminately bomb the men, women and children trying to survive in the Gaza strip.”
It is reported Barclays bank, in addition to being one of the largest financiers of new fossil fuels, holds over £1 billion in shares, and provides over £3 billion in loans and underwriting to nine companies producing weapons being used against Palestinians. [3]
From 1967 to Sep 2021, Israel has imprisoned more than 700,000 Palestinians from the occupied territories (West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem). According to the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian advocacy group, Israel currently imprisons nearly 5,000 Palestinians, including more than 1,000 administrative detainees and 160 children. [3] [4]
Since the Just Stop Oil campaign launched on 14th February 2022, there have been over 2,100 arrests and 138 people have spent time in prison, many without trial. There are currently two Just Stop Oil supporters serving three year prison sentences for resisting new oil, gas and coal.
We stand with these political prisoners, with the 1,800 victims of the UK’s broken criminal justice system, imprisoned for over a year without trial, and with the 1,700 murdered across the global south, for protecting all our lives. Normal people must come together to resist these criminal governments and hold them to account for their genocidal policies. [4][5]
Just Stop Oil is calling on everyone to get off the sidelines and join in civil resistance against new oil, gas and coal.
The time is now. Join us and slow march while you still can. Our indefinite campaign of civil resistance is underway and will not end until our government makes a meaningful statement halting new fossil fuel projects in the UK.
Join Just Stop Oil on a slow march at midday every Saturday, at Parliament Square until we win.
ENDS
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Notes to Editors
[1] Just Stop Oil is a coalition of groups working together to demand that the government immediately halt all future licensing and consents for the exploration, development and production of fossil fuels in the UK. Just Stop Oil is a member of the A22 Network of civil resistance projects. Climate Emergency Fund is Just Stop Oil’s primary funder for recruitment, training, and capacity building.
Just Stop Oil ‘Blue Lights’ policy: our policy is, and has always been, to move out of the way for emergency vehicles with siren sounding and ‘blue lights’ on.
[2] https://www.palestinecampaign.org/events/nakba-75-national-protest/
[3] https://www.palestinecampaign.org/campaigns/stop-arming-israel-3/
[4] https://imeu.org/article/fact-sheet-palestinian-political-prisoners-in-israel
[5] https://www.addameer.org/statistics
[6] Fair Trials reports that the number of people being held in prison without trial in England and Wales is at its highest for over 50 years, with 1,800 people in prison without trial for at least a year. https://www.fairtrials.org/articles/news/highest-number-of-people-on-remand-in-england-and-wales-for-over-50-years/
[7] A recent report from Global Witness says that more than 1,700 people have died while trying to prevent mining, oil drilling or logging on their lands. https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/deadly-decade-land-and-environmental-activists-killing-every-two-days/
