Police shut down “illegal” London farmers protest

Today’s London Sikh community led demonstration in solidarity with farmers’ protests in India was shut down by police as it was deemed “illegal” due to Covid protocol.

The demonstration was the first of three days of planned activity in the capital to show solidarity with millions of farmers from across India that have occupied Delhi to push the Indian government into revoking exploitative farming laws. A rally on Sunday is still in place to go-ahead.

Today’s (4.12.20) protest was advertised for over a week on social media. According to police in attendance, itt was shut down due to not having gone through the process of being cleared by Westminster council and having an individual in place as the organiser taking responsibility for “risk assessment”. This means the 24-hour protest from Friday-Saturday has been cancelled. The rally and protest on Sunday has full council clearance and risk assessment responsibility taken. Video footage of police explaining this was taken by many attendees.

Although the reasoning was made clear in the end by police, the process of shutting down the protest was inconsistent. To start with at 12pm, police said the protest was fine but requested individuals to social distance. From 12.30pm police soon started requesting the protesters to not only keep two metres distance but also to split into groups of six and spread out even further. By 1pm police started pushing protesters into crossing the street to move away from the Indian High Commission (IHC) building, despite the fact there was more than enough room around the IHC for attendees to protest socially distanced. Finally, by around 2pm three more police vans with approximately 25 more officers arrived and declared the protest was “illegal” and all protesters had to leave immediately or face arrest and/or fines. One individual was arrested for seemingly not leaving the area of the protest quick enough. Their status is not currently known, or any possible charges faced.

One protester who asked to remain anonymous said of the shutdown, “We came to the protest on the London underground tube, where there was more people and less social distancing happening than the protest. The legislation around Covid-19 protocol really makes no sense when it comes to actual safeguarding against spreading the virus. Our protest can’t be accused of being ignorant of spreading the virus whilst we are outdoors in masks and opposite us hundreds were crammed into a small dining area in a café without masks.  It seems most of it is just a tick-box exercise that on this occasion police clearly used against us.”

Sikh Press Association Senior Press Officer Jasveer Singh who was in attendance said “The process of shutting down the protest was very strange as messaging was changing constantly. There seemed to be no logical reason the protest could not continue with safe-spacing. There was plenty of room and the protesters all followed police demands to spread out and even cross the road. Officers were regularly in discussion with IHC staff that were coming in-and-out of the building too.

“The Sikh community will expect fairer treatment on Sunday.”