British police announced on Sunday, January 14, the arrest of six people belonging to a pro-Palestinian group suspected of attempting to disrupt the London Stock Exchange to protest against the “arms trade” with Israel.
“Activists from the Palestine Action group allegedly planned to attack the London Stock Exchange on the morning of Monday, January 15, causing damage and “locking down” the building to prevent it from opening,” Scotland explains. Yard in a press release issued this evening.
Palestine Action describes itself as a “direct action network” whose aim is to denounce “British complicity” with the State of Israel. “The London Stock Exchange raises billions of pounds for the Israeli apartheid regime (…) and trades shares in arms manufacturers that support the genocide of the Palestinian people,” he claimed on X.
Police launched an investigation on Friday after being tipped off by a journalist from the Daily Express tabloid who had infiltrated the activist group. According to the reporter's information, the activists planned to tie themselves to the entrance of the stock exchange with padlocks around their necks, lock themselves in the building and smear it with red paint and counterfeit banknotes.
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A “week of action” against British institutions
On Sunday, a 31-year-old man and two women, aged 28 and 26, were arrested in Liverpool, a 29-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man in London and a 27-year-old man in Brighton on suspicion of “conspiracy to cause criminal damage”. They were all still in custody on Sunday evening.
The group has carried out several actions since the war began on October 7, 2023, provoked by the unprecedented attack on Israeli soil by the Palestinian movement Hamas, which led to a bloody reaction in the Gaza Strip.
In October he covered the facade of the BBC headquarters in London with red paint and accused the public broadcaster of having “blood on its hands” over its coverage of the war.
Scotland Yard said the failed attempt was part of a “week of action” by the group against British institutions and that police would do everything they could “to deal with any disruption in the coming days”.
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