Youth Demand activists disrupt London Pride with red paint in pro-Palestine protest
Several campaigners have been arrested after they blocked US-based company Cisco's float in central London, accusing the company of being 'complicit in genocide' and 'hiding their crimes behind a veil of pink washing'.
Four Youth Demand activists threw red paint over the float at around 12:30pm as it passed along Piccadilly. They then sat down in the road and glued themselves to the float, chanting 'we charge you with genocide'.
The Parade was delayed for about an hour while the group were removed, with five arrests made.
The group said on social media: 'Technology corporation CISCO has a long standing partnership with the Israeli military and enables the mass murder of Palestinians through advanced military communication networks facilitated by their Unified Communication systems. They have willingly supplied their technology to strengthen Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza and have NO place at London pride.
'They are not only complicit in war crimes but actively enabling military communications in an apartheid state. We demand a total trade embargo on Israel and an end to the pinkwashing of complicit corporations.'
According to Youth Demand, one of the protestors, Reya Wood, 22, a student from Swansea, said: 'I am taking action against Cisco at London Pride to highlight the company's complicity in genocide and how they are hiding their crimes behind a veil of pink washing.
As a queer woman, this action is particularly meaningful to me. I refuse to stand aside and allow my queer identity to be exploited for commercial gain at the hands of war criminals.'
The protesters were pictures being arrested and taken away by police.
The Independent has contacted Cisco and the Met Police for comment. A spokesperson from the force told the Mail Online: 'Met officers have arrested five people after Youth Demand protesters disrupted the Pride event in central London.
'At around 12:30hrs four members of the group threw red paint over a truck involved in the parade and glued themselves to the vehicle outside The Ritz.
'They were removed by specialist officers and arrested. A fifth member of the group was arrested in the crowd.
'The parade has resumed and a significant policing operation remains in place.'
The protest happened a short distance away from a separate protest taking place in support of recently proscribed group Palestine Action.
Over 20 people were arrested on suspicion of terror offences at a Palestine Action protest where dozens stood silently beneath the statue of Mahatma Ghandi in Parliament Square.
The protesters were holding placards that said: 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action'.
It came hours after Palestine Action lost a late-night Court of Appeal challenge on Friday which sought to stop the protest group being banned.
The move was confirmed less than two hours before the new legislation came into force at midnight.
The designation as a terror group means that membership of or support for Palestine Action is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
The protest started at about 1.10pm and officers were seen taking people away shortly after 1.30pm.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
9 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Waterworld where four-year-old girl died 'had strongest wave pool I've felt', says mother who was there on tragic day
The waterpark where a four-year-old girl died had the 'strongest wave pool' swimmers had ever felt, according to a mother there on the day. Staffordshire Police were called to Waterworld in Stoke-on-Trent on Monday to reports of a girl in a critical condition. The child was rushed to hospital for further treatment but sadly passed away a short while later. Parents of children who had been at the 'lagoon area of the aqua park' where the tragic event took place have since spoken out, sharing their 'heartbreak'. A mother, who took her three children to the waterpark that day told the Telegraph she had never been to one with such a strong wave pool. The parent, who did not wish to be named, had attended with her husband and three children, aged 11, five and three. She described 'struggling to remain' on her feet due to the 'strength' of the current, adding she had used wave pools before but 'never experienced one that forceful'. 'As an adult, I did not feel confident keeping my younger children safe there, and made the decision to remove them. My husband remained with our 11-year-old, who is a strong swimmer, but even he was struggling to stay above water. 'Although lifeguards were positioned at key points, I found it very difficult to maintain visibility of my children in the children's area,' she added. The mother went on to say there had been a 'number of slides and structures' blocking sight lines and that she lost sight of her five-year-old 'several times' while managing her 'three-year-old'. She said her daughter had wandered towards the wave pool on more than one occasion and she had to remind her not to enter the water alone and to stay near the orange and green slides and wait if she could not see her. Another woman described the moment she saw the little girl on the floor and recalled having to leave as her own girl did not want to see it and as her children were 'afraid'. And a different local said the venue had been 'crowded' on the day, adding she thought there were 'not enough lifeguards'. The attendee said they were not sure exactly what had happened but was aware of wave machines that are 'quite choppy' and the need to be a 'strong swimmer'. They added it was a 'complete tragedy'. Another resident said it was 'heartbreaking' while customer Heather Neville, 33, of Stone, Staffordshire, described finding the site closed following the girl's death after she arrived with her two sons. She said it was 'absolutely dreadful' and said she was unsure as to whether she could bring her boys back when the waterpark reopens. The typhoon lagoon wave pool is indicated on a map of the water park - where artificial waves reach heights of 1.4 metres. Toddlers are permitted to go in but only 'strong swimmers' can use the deep end. Non-swimmers are instructed to remain in shallow water, according the company's website. A Waterworld spokesman said: 'It is with great sadness that we learned of this little girl's passing. All our thoughts are with her family and loved ones during these extremely difficult times. Waterworld is working closely with the authorities. 'All other visitors were asked to quietly leave the pool out of respect for the rescue operation under way, and we would like to thank them for their support and collaboration.' West Midlands Ambulance Service stated it received a number of 999 calls to 'Waterworld at 4.20pm on Monday. Two ambulances, a paramedic officer and the Midlands Air Ambulance from Cosford attended the scene. A spokesman for the service said: 'Crews arrived to find Waterworld staff and bystanders performing CPR on a girl who was in a critical condition. 'The ambulance team quickly took over resuscitation efforts to commence advanced life support before conveying the girl by air ambulance to Royal Stoke University Hospital whilst life-saving treatment continued en route. 'Tragically, despite the best efforts of everyone, nothing could be done to save the little girl, and she was confirmed deceased in hospital a short time later. 'Our thoughts are with the family and friends at this truly awful time.' Stoke-on-Trent city council said in a statement on Tuesday: 'The council's environmental health team are working with the police and the privately run venue to undertake a full health and safety investigation.' Steve Watkins, the Mayor of Stoke-on-Trent, said: 'This is a terrible tragedy, and our thoughts are with her family and loved ones.'
Daily Mail
11 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
We must have transparency over migrants and crime. The politicians who lose control of our borders cannot be allowed to hide the consequences from us
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, looking more beleaguered and sounding less convincing than ever, said yesterday that the police should routinely reveal the nationality and asylum status of those charged with criminal offences. New legal guidance, she promised, would shortly be issued for police forces to provide greater 'transparency'. Not for the first time, Labour was rushing to follow in the footsteps of Nigel Farage 's Reform party. Only 24 hours before, as part of Reform's 'Britain is lawless' campaign, Farage had called for the ethnicity of suspects charged with rape and sexual assaults to be made public. Now Cooper was in a hurry to oblige.
Daily Mail
11 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
What a Hiroshima-sized blast would have done to LONDON: Unseen government diagrams imagine carnage if nuke was used on UK in 1945
Imagine a very different end to the Second World War. Instead of the US dropping the world's first atomic bombs on Japan, it was the Japanese hammering London with the devastating new weapon. In 1945, that is more or less what was considered by the British government, which was freshly in the hands of Labour's Clement Attlee after his triumph over Winston Churchill at that year's election. Official diagrams envisaged the impact of atomic bomb blasts in London, with the force described as being equivalent to what was unleashed on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945. One of the two maps - recently seen by the Mail at the National Archives in Kew, West London - imagines the impact of a bomb detonated over Trafalgar Square. It said everything within 1,000 yards of the epicentre - so all of Whitehall, Covent Garden and St James' Palace - would be totally wiped out. Then, there would have been damage 'beyond repair' to areas within a distance of one mile - including the rest of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, the BBC 's headquarters and the British Museum. The likes of St Paul's Cathedral, Smithfield Market, Victoria Station and Marble Arch were within the third ring up to 1.5 miles away, described as 'uninhabitable without major repairs'. The final ring - up to 2.5 miles away - includes King's Cross Station, the Bank of England, Tower Bridge, Battersea Power Station and Regent's Park. Everything in this area would have been 'uninhabitable without first aid repairs', the report's authors said. The two maps feature as part of a file that also includes a report titled, 'An Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bombs Dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki', which was compiled after an official visit to the ruined cities by British officials. The other map gives a wider view, showing the impact of five blasts over London. Again the explosions are 'as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki'. As well as the bomb over Trafalgar Square, four others are depicted detonating over Poplar in East London; in Primrose Hill above Regent's Park; in Hammersmith in West London and in Tooting in South London. Collectively, they would have rendered nearly all of Central London a flattened wasteland. Areas such as Lambeth in the south of the capital would have been unscathed, but the borough's inhabitants would have faced having to grapple with a likely total breakdown in law and order and a collapse of the emergency services. Although the official report - which was compiled by the British Mission to Japan - is dated December 1945, the maps themselves were made the following year, as an Ordnance Survey label on them shows. The key on the map detailing how everything up to a distance of 1,000 yards from the epicentre of the blast would have been 'demolished' The foreword to the report optimistically concluded: 'His Majesty's Government consider that a full understanding of the consequences of the new form of attack may assist the United Nations Organisation in its task of securing the control of atomic energy for the common good and in abolishing the use of weapons of mass destruction.' The British mission included scientists and senior officials in the Home Office, War Office and Air Ministry. It laid out in horrifying detail the devastation wrought by 'Little Boy' and 'Fat Man' - the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by US forces. In Hiroshima, the blast - at 8.15am on August 6, 1945 - obliterated everything within the surrounding square mile, killing around 80,000 people in the blink of an eye. At least 30,000 more died from their devastating injuries in the 48 hours that followed. A total of five square miles of the city were consumed by fire storms, and the blast obliterated 90 per cent of Hiroshima's structures. The police, fire and ambulance services were all virtually wiped out, with survivors left to fend for themselves before help arrived from further afield. The attack on Nagasaki came on August 9, after Japan refused to surrender despite the carnage in Hiroshima. The key for the second map, explaining the colours detailing the respective levels of destruction The device - Fat Man - was carried by the B-29 bomber named Bockscar. It claimed at least 50,000 more lives and wiped out a third of the city. Japan finally agreed to the Allies' terms of surrender on August 14. The British Mission's report estimated that, for several reasons, the impact of a blast like the ones that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be less devastating in London. Because of factors such as population density, the presence of well-built houses offering more protection and better rescue services than in Japan, the death toll from a single blast is estimated at 50,000. But the report chillingly added: 'The comparable figure for the German V2 rocket was about 15 dead'. The authors continued: 'The figure of 50,000 dead from one atomic bomb in average British urban conditions is probably the most important which this report contains. 'It shows that much of the most serious effect of the atomic bomb is in producing casualties. 'The problem of providing against and of treating gamma ray casualties is exceptionally grave and difficult.' The explosion of a bomb of the power of those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would have wiped out around 30,000 houses in a British city. Between 50,000 and 100,000 more properties would be rendered temporarily uninhabitable. The report went on: 'Thus a total of roughly 400,000 people might be rendered temporarily homeless'. It was not until the 1970s - when the risk of conflict with the Soviet Union was high - that the Government's public information campaign advising what to do in the event of a nuclear attack was released. The 'Protect and Survive' series told Britons to prepare a 'fall-out room' in which they would need to store enough food and water for two weeks. They were also advised to bring the likes of kitchen utensils, a portable radio, toilet paper, a bucket and a first aid kit. Shortly after the leaflet was released, expert critics said the advice would not be helpful. One said the protective measures were 'illusory' because people would immediately 'panic' in the event of a nuclear attack. The Protect and Survive campaign also included newspaper adverts, radio broadcasts and public information films. Whilst the campaign had been intended for use only in an emergency, it came to public attention in a series of newspaper articles. The Government then decided to publish the leaflet in May 1980 and the public information films were leaked to the BBC and anti-nuclear group CND. The 1984 BBC drama Threads depicted the horrifying consequences of a nuclear attack on Britain. Threads was watched by seven million people on BBC Two and won four Baftas, but it also left many viewers traumatised. The gruesome details - the shocking burns, the radiation sickness, the obliteration of buildings following the imagined attack on the city of Sheffield - were a constant presence in the drama. Dozens of those who watched were so shaken that they called the charity Samaritans for support.
