🚨STATEMENT🚨
1/ The @metpoliceuk have finally decided to clear us out of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. This was only to be expected, as any time the powerful are called out for their actions, they will inevitably use the instruments of state violence to suppress it.
1/ The @metpoliceuk have finally decided to clear us out of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. This was only to be expected, as any time the powerful are called out for their actions, they will inevitably use the instruments of state violence to suppress it.
2/ It is also hardly a surprise that this started on the night after we began protesting the banks - the engine houses fuelling and accelerating climate catastrophe.
3/ Many @ExtinctionR protesters will have been rightfully outraged by the actions of the @metpoliceuk over the last 10 days. Whether the pre-emptive seizure of equipment, including access equipment for our @XRDisabledRebel friends...
4/ Or the forceful arrest of Rabbi @JeffreyNewman at Bank yesterday. And we all have every reason to be furious at such acts of disregard for decency and dignity.
5/ Yet we have to realise that these are the kinds of actions, often far worse, that are inflicted upon vulnerable communities every day. People were shocked at the police turfing families from Trafalgar Sq. at night yesterday. UK immigration raids have been doing this for years.
6/ It does not matter if individual police officers are sympathetic to @ExtinctionR's cause. When the order comes to protect the centres of power and capital, that is what they will have to do. That is why the police, as an institution, exists.
7/ One thing is certain, however. We saw an incredible space emerge, on the streets, in the tents and here online, over the past few days, for listening, sharing, learning and protesting.
8/ We can see that there is a real desire for these conversations to take place, both from within @ExtinctionR and beyond, to build a movement of solidarity that is based on internationalism, intersectionality, and justice.
9/ We have nothing but love for the folks at @XRLiberation, @ScotlandXr, @XRSlough and all the other groups fighting the good fight and facilitating true self-reflection and transformation within @ExtinctionR.
10/ This is not to mention groups like @WarOnWant, @PSG_BD, @STOPMAANGAMIZI, @FrontGreen, @wretchedotearth, @raparuk, @FuelPovAction, @biofuelwatch, @londonmining and many more who have been drawing the links between climate change, capitalism, and colonialism for many years.
11/ In one form or another these conversations will continue. Even if the big marquee is no longer there, we know that the space it created will not die any time soon. We will be back in the near future with much more, so make sure to keep watching this space.
12/ Thank you to all those who came by, all those who participated, all those who helped out, in however small a way, to make this possible.
Love, strength, and solidarity!✊🏾✊🏿✊🏽✊🏻✊🏼
Love, strength, and solidarity!✊🏾✊🏿✊🏽✊🏻✊🏼
