FIVE Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists have been remanded to prison for conspiring to cause “public nuisance” at Manchester airport.
Greater Manchester Police pre-emptively arrested four activists on Monday, stating that its specialist operations branch had prevented a targeted attack which would have brought “significant delays.”
Another activist was then arrested the next day in Birmingham.
JSO has been staging a series of actions co-ordinated by climate groups across 12 countries, to demand that governments establish a treaty to end the extraction and burning of fossil fuels by 2030.
Appearing at Manchester magistrates’ court on Tuesday, Noah Crane, Margaret Reid, Daniel Knorr, Ella Ward and Indigo Rumbelow, were remanded for conspiring to cause a public nuisance.
Ms Rumbelow was forcibly removed from the dock and dragged away, after demanding the court “prosecute the real criminals.”
Speaking before his imprisonment, Mr Crane said: “I’m not scared of going to prison.
“What I am scared of is what will happen if we don’t act on this crisis.
“The world is in a position where there is no threat they can make towards me, that outweighs the consequences of inaction.”
Today, JSO called for a pause on further actions while unrest incited by the far-right sweeps Britain.
A JSO spokesperson said: “In accordance with our commitment to nonviolence, we will not stretch police resources, such that they are unable to protect communities most at risk.
“We recognise that without the elimination of the underlying causes of this unrest, the violent disruption we are seeing on the streets is likely to continue.
“This is the inevitable consequence of a broken political system, economic austerity, and the withdrawal of the social safety net.
“Anger has been misdirected by agitators among the political class, the billionaire-owned press, and by other elites; who have been scapegoating the people who have done the least to create this situation.”
The number of people imprisoned in Britain for demanding action to address climate change has now risen to 26.
Last month, a judge jailed five JSO activists for a total of 21 years for co-ordinating a peaceful action on the M25 over Zoom.
