British Quakers condemn police raid at London meetinghouse, call for reform to protect right to protest

The following story was adapted from news reports posted on the Quakers in Britain website. Follow the latest updates on this and other stories concerning British Friends at Quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news.

Police broke into a Quaker meetinghouse in London on the evening of Thursday, March 27, and arrested six young people who had gathered for a meeting over concerns for climate justice and the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Quakers in Britain, another name for Britain Yearly Meeting, strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of strict protest laws that have severely limited the options available to UK citizens to challenge the status quo.

Just before 7:15 p.m., more than 20 uniformed Metropolitan Police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meetinghouse in Central London. They broke open the front door without warning, searched the building, and arrested the six women at the meeting on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. The individuals arrested are not Quakers. The meeting was convened by the activist group Youth Demand and took place in a rented room. A Quaker elder was present in the building at the time.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023 have criminalized many forms of protest and allow police to halt actions deemed too disruptive. Meanwhile, changes in judicial procedures limit protesters’ ability to defend their actions in court. Britain Yearly Meeting believes that such measures have resulted in “fewer and fewer ways to speak truth to power,” and has since called for repeal of the Public Order Act 2023 and parts of the PCSC Act 2022.

Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for the planet. Since the founding of Quakerism in the mid-1600s, many Friends have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage and prison reform.

“No one has been arrested in a Quaker meetinghouse in living memory,” said Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain. “This aggressive violation of our place of worship and the forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalizes protest. Freedom of speech, assembly, and fair trials are an essential part of free public debate which underpins democracy.”