Today morning a blocking traffic action was going on the central London and Manchester. It was a series of Extinction Rebellion protest in this quarter.
In London, near the Leicester tube hub station, 25 climate change demonstrators sat in the middle of Cranbourn Street.
As Oliver, one of the members of the demonstration, described: ” very early this morning, we glued a lot of concrete-block on the road, I think. A lot of people glued themselves on the block and they dropped the road with this truck you can see here with the ban says, AIR POLLUTION KILLS 25 LONDONERS EACH DAY. The focus of this action was to raise awareness of the dangerous level of air pollution in many streets of central London.”
The protestors who wore gas masks and adorned hi-vis suits would like the government to respond to the high level of air pollution. The Met Police prompt reacted to the demonstration action. Police officers, as well as road maintenance workers, showed up in the street.
And also, Oliver added this was a peaceful protest:“ I think so for the police, people who broke the law, people who glued the block down, and blocked on the road, so the police concerned. Their job, as I understood, is to arrest people who break the law, but people have a protest, peaceful protest, they haven’t broken the law, so for the police, they don’t need to move those people along. Actually, part of their job is to facilitate a peaceful protest.”
At lunch time, about 11 AM, Cranbourn Street restored order slowly and peaceful. The climate change activists who wore specific suit had gone or been evacuated, and the road maintenance staff were cleaning the barriers, the yellow breeze-blocks protestors stuck. However, the van still parked on the main road. Nearly ten police cars were in the Leicester station.
The next action
The hungry strike lasting three-week at the Conservative party headquarters still is going on, but some mild protests stage in the meantime. As Oliver said: “ there’s someone who is in charge of planning activities, I’m not this one. But we get some Christmas Carols. We like different lyric about involvement. I think we are going to go around the city today, send Christmas Carols to different people, so that’s quite relax a day.”
After the lunch break, another Extinction Rebellion group that wore gas masks and casual gathered on Cranbourn street, they discussed and planned the next action and site. The police officer followed them tightly even though they need to take the tube pursuing them.
