Greta Thunberg arrested in London at a pro-Pal demonstration | EUROtoday

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The Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was arrested right this moment in London by British police whereas collaborating in a pro-pal demonstration. This was introduced by the organizers of the initiative, promoted to point out solidarity with eight inmates of the group Palestine Action who’ve been conducting an indefinite starvation strike for greater than 50 days to protest in opposition to their trial and jail circumstances within the United Kingdom, the place they’ve been in preventive detention for months on the sidelines of the extremely contested ban for “terrorism”, needed by the federal government of Keir Starmerof the group they’re a part of.

Palestine Action is a gaggle identified for civil disobedience actions and talking out in opposition to ties between London and Israel in opposition to the backdrop of what occurred in Gaza Striphowever its militants are usually not by no means been charged with assaults on folks. While the Starmer authorities’s draconian crackdown on him has been criticized each within the Kingdom and overseas: by the pacifist left, by liberal politicians, by humanitarian NGOs comparable to Amnesty International and by businessesHim. The starvation strike of the eight prisoners – women and men nonetheless awaiting trial and at the moment not convicted of any crime – is the longest ever carried out within the nation because the tragic “Hunger strike” of 1981: when the Northern Irish republican militant Bobby Sands and 9 of his different combating companions allowed themselves to die in Maze jail, on the peak of the bloody battle of the Troubles, confronted with the refusal of the then conservative authorities of Margaret Thatcher to acknowledge their actions as political and unusual crimes.

This time Starmer’s Labor government is below accusation, beginning with the justice ministers, David Lammyand of the Interior, Shabana Mahmood, who’s accused of bureaucratic and inhumane administration of the matter. Marked by the repeated refusal to reply to appeals introduced by dozens of deputies within the House of Commons and even to satisfy legal professionals and family members of the prisoners concerned: a few of whom are already hospitalized because of the deterioration of their circumstances; and is now prone to shedding his life as reiterated right this moment by his household and supporters. Complaints that Greta Thunberg made her personal by addressing London protesters earlier than her arrest, as witnessed in a video shot by the protest group Prisoners for Palestine: «I», stated the younger Swedish activist, «I help the prisoners of Palestine Action, I oppose the genocide». At least two different demonstrators seem to have been stopped by the police on the sidelines of right this moment’s rally, which passed off in entrance of the places of work of Aspen Insurancewithin the coronary heart of the British capital. They are accused of getting focused the London headquarters of the insurance coverage group with purple spray paint, in reminiscence of the blood shed by the victims of Gaza: contested for the monetary help assured to Elbit Systemsan Israeli firm linked to the military-industrial complicated.