Quaker ‘Just Stop Oil’ protestor in jail
'The very exercise of searching our consciences, engaging in intense deliberation and feelings… can be a powerful agent of growth and development.’
A Quaker has been imprisoned for breaking an injunction at the Kingsbury Oil Terminal as part of the Just Stop Oil (JSO) protests.
Rajan Naidu, seventy-one, from Stourbridge and Hampstead Meetings, was sentenced to thirty-four days in prison, after being found guilty of his third breach of the injunction. He will serve at least half of that time. He has already spent time on remand this year after breaching the Warwickshire injunction in May.
The civil rights advocate from Birmingham was one of more than fifty JSO protesters who were sent to prison in just one day two weeks ago. At least two Quakers – Sue Hampton from Berkhamstead Meeting and Arne Springorum from Prague Meeting – were sent to prison after refusing to comply with court proceedings for breaking an injunction to take part in a blockade of the oil terminal in Warwickshire over two weeks ago. Sue Hampton was one of ten JSO activists released with sentences varying from twenty-five to thirty-four days suspended for two years, plus individual costs of around £400.
Meanwhile Arne Springorum, who formerly attended Wandsworth Meeting, received a suspended sentence of 21 days on 22 September.
Leslie Tate, Sue Hampton’s partner, said that Sue was jailed initially when she told the judge she did not accept the court’s authority and that she would return to Kingsbury.
She did this as ‘our new prime minister intends to open many more oil fields, including Rosebank which will dwarf the emissions that will come from Cambo (oilfield) and Jackdaw (gasfield)’. The couple are asking Friends to change their bank account, energy supplier or pension using the Switch It website, but also to ‘talk to people’ and ‘make your voice heard’.
‘What do love and justice require of us?’ Rajan Naidu wrote in the Friend earlier this year: ‘The very exercise of searching our consciences, engaging in intense deliberation and feelings… can be a powerful agent of growth and development.’
JSO apologised after a farmer shared a video online of rubbish left by protesters at the Kingsbury oil terminal.
A group of Friends is meeting at Friends House in Euston at 11am before going on to hold a Meeting for Worship at the JSO protests in Westminster on 1 and 8 October.
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