Members of the environmental group Just Stop Oil sprayed orange paint in London on Monday on the facades of the Home Office, MI5 (domestic intelligence), the Bank of England and the headquarters of the News Corp media group. “These buildings were chosen because they represent the pillars that support and maintain the power of the fossil fuel economy, government, security, finance and the media,” said Just Stop Oil, which campaigns for the immediate halt to any new oil or gas project, in a press release.
Eight people arrested
A total of eight people were arrested, police said. “The age of fossil fuels should be long over, but the insidious ramifications of fossil fuel interests continue to corrupt our politics, government and the media as they have for decades,” a spokesperson said. of the group.
BREAKING: LONDON PAINTED ORANGE
At 8:30am today, 6 Just Stop Oil supporters sprayed orange paint from fire extinguishers onto the Home Office, the MI5 building, the Bank of England and the headquarters of News Corp at London Bridge.
@cameraZoepic.twitter.com/YCgTzvokQO
— Just Stop Oil ⚖️ (@JustStop_Oil) October 31, 2022
Among the sites targeted on Monday is the London headquarters of News Corp, the American group of Australian tycoon Rupert Murdoch, which notably owns the reference daily in the United Kingdom. The Times and the tabloid The Sun. The group’s British print shops were blocked in September 2020 by activists from the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion, disrupting the distribution of newspapers.
The continuation of a series of actions in the United Kingdom
Just Stop Oil has carried out a series of actions since the beginning of the month in the United Kingdom, where activists have tarted the wax statue of King Charles at Madame Tussauds, tossed tomato soup on Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery or doused an Aston Martin dealership in paint. Activists repeatedly blocked streets in London over the weekend and faced the wrath of motorists who sometimes forced them out.
A Just Stop Oil spokesperson said:
“We are not prepared to stand by and watch while everything we love is destroyed, while vulnerable people go hungry and fossil fuel companies and the rich profit from our misery. pic.twitter.com/O3ydRe3rFB
— Just Stop Oil ⚖️ (@JustStop_Oil) October 31, 2022
A man and a woman, for example, shot activists to clear their way on Sunday while a motorist shouted at them that she had to pass because she had a sick child in her car. On Saturday, a London police official, Matt Twist, had called on the public not to “intervene directly” to dislodge the protesters. He then announced that the police had made 651 arrests since October 1 and that the actions of Just Stop Oil had required 7,900 vacations from members of the police.