Nine activists who said they were from Black Lives Matter UK have been charged with trespassing after a protest on the runway at London City airport.
William Pettifer, 27, of Radford; Esme Waldron, 23, from Brighton; Natalie Fiennes, 25, of Wandsworth, south London; Deborah Francis-Grayson, 31, from Slough; Richard Collet-White, 23, of Kempston and Ben Tippet, 24, from Wandsworth, have been charged with aggravated trespass and being unlawfully airside within a restricted area of an aerodrome.
Sama Baka, 27, Alex Etchart, 26, and Sam Lund-Harket, 32, who are listed as living on a houseboat on the river Stort, Roydon, face the same charges.
They have been released on bail to appear at Westminster magistrates court on 14 September.
Dozens of flights were cancelled or rescheduled at the airport in Newham, east London, on Tuesday as police dealt with a demonstration.
Black Lives Matter UK said it aimed to highlight the disproportionate impact air pollution had on black people.
But the group confused some with its wide-ranging press release, which also listed the deteriorating environment in Newham, the wealthy clientele at London City airport, the migration crisis in the Mediterranean, the impact climate change has on sub-Saharan Africa and immigration deportations as motives behind the action.
The protest also triggered a debate over the authenticity of Black Lives Matter UK when it emerged all nine protesters were white, with prominent black rights activists accusing the group of “cultural appropriation”.
Stafford Scott and Lee Jasper, a former equality adviser to Ken Livingstone, were publicly critical of the protest, accusing white leftwing activists of hijacking the Black Lives Matter banner. “It’s cultural appropriation. Even our struggle [is] no longer our own,” Jasper said on Twitter.
But environmental group Friends of the Earth said the group was right to draw attention to the disproportionate impact air pollution has on ethnic minorities.
Flights were cancelled to Geneva, Milan, Luxembourg, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Zürich, Florence, Mallorca and Málaga. Flights to Dublin and Frankfurt were showing “indefinite delays”.
Black Lives Matter was set up in the US following the killing of the black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida four years ago. Since then offshoot groups have emerged internationally.
