Co-founder of Extinction Rebellion now plans hunger strike
Roger Hallam being arrested
54-year-old Roger Hallam, an environmental activist who lives on Putney Bridge Road, has been remanded in custody after being charged with conspiracy to cause criminal damage.
He was one of five people who appeared at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, 25 August and have been detained ahead of a plea hearing on Tuesday 22, September.
Mr Hallam was arrested at his home on Monday 24 August. Four other members of the Beyond Politics group were also detained at the same time ahead of what was believed to be some form of organised disruption. All five say they now intend to start an indefinite hunger strike against what they describe as the injustice of their imprisonment.
Beyond Politics undertakes non-violent direct action with the intention of bringing down the government. It wants to create Citizens’ Assemblies that can make laws.
Before his incarceration Mr Hallam wrote,” “Humankind is facing its final moment of reckoning: ecological and climate collapse. Are we going to stand by and allow the f**kers in control of this world to take us to oblivion or a hell of endless pain, for their own pleasures? or, are we going to come together and say, we are the people and we will not be denied?”
One of the other detainees was 56-year-old Steven Nunn, an ordained Anglican priest who has four children and six grandchildren. He believes radical action of the kind espoused by Beyond Politics is necessary saying, , “I now believe that their approach, their attitude, their plans and their hopes is the way forward. I think now is the time for a much more radical approach. Whether that be legal whether that be illegal . Whether that involves going to prison or whether it doesn’t. Something needs to happen so that people will stand up and listen.”
Retired GP, 61-year-old, Diana Warner from Bristol was also jailed. She said, “I am a retired GP and a mother of two. Just before I retired I was examining a 6 week old baby and I realized that I have to help her to have a good and fulfilled life, a happy life. And if I’m willing to do that I have to set about changing the systems of our world which are destroying itself. And so I am fully involved with Beyond Politics.”
A documentary ‘The Troublemaker’ was released last Friday, featuring Mr Hallam giving his views.
Beyond Politics Party UK is part of the global movement, Burning Pink an international network which believes citizen assemblies rather than parliamentary democracy can provide the solution to the challenges of climate change. Although most of their activists were formerly Extinction Rebellion activists they are no longer associated.
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August 28, 2020
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