Police carried out widespread abuses of power during Extinction Rebellion’s two weeks of protests in October, according to investigators who have collated dozens of reports from protesters.
The Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) says it counted 521 reports by XR protesters of abuses of police power, including 200 accusations of rough handling and physical harm and 99 of intimidation or inappropriate behaviour.
Netpol’s report comes after the force’s own disability advisers accused officers of “degrading and humiliating” treatment of disabled activists and judges in the high court opened the way for mass legal action against the police by quashing the force’s attempt to ban the protests.
Sam Walton, a member of Netpol’s steering committee and an author of the report, said: “The key conclusion is that police were more interested in preventing Extinction Rebellion’s protests than in facilitating them.
“In doing that they systematically discriminated against disabled protesters, they used excessive force, and they used their section 14 powers to delegitimise protesters as citizens with rights. We hope that this scrutiny of the policing of XR leads to the bodies that hold police to account actually taking some action.”
Between 7 and 19 October, protesters staged dozens of demonstrations around Westminster and the City of London financial district as part of XR’s “autumn rebellion”, with the aim of raising awareness of the lack of government action over the climate and ecological crisis.
Following XR’s doctrine of causing disruption through non-violent disobedience, thousands taking part blocked roads and sites, including through the use of lock-on devices, in an attempt to shut down parts of the city. Police responded in force, making more than 1,700 arrests in just under two weeks.
It was the second mass protest organised by the movement after a similar fortnight of demonstrations in April.
However, while those taking part in the first wave of protest were surprised by the comparative leniency of police, many complained of excessive and overzealous tactics and behaviour from officers during the second.
In one incident mentioned in the report, a police officer snapped the finger of a protester holding a scaffold in Trafalgar Square, causing what doctors confirmed would be a life changing injury. In another, a disabled protester who was injured by police while being held in a van after being arrested was dearrested and let out rather than being cared for. A third reported incident involved a woman who said a police officer touched her inappropriately while arresting her, while another played with her hair as she was in handcuffs.
Aside from violence and intimidation, Netpol collected dozens of accounts of misuses of stop and search, inappropriate arrests, confiscation of belongings, and targeting of disabled people.
Jenny Jones, a Green party peer, said: “I am shocked in particular by the absolute disregard for the welfare and rights of disabled protesters, as well as those who are elderly and less physically robust.
“Based on their experiences outlined in this report, I fully support the call for an urgent review of how, in future, the police facilitate disabled people’s right to protest and how disabled protesters are treated on arrest.”
