Scotland Yard has faced criticism for suppressing a peaceful pro-Palestinian protest after the head of Greenpeace UK and other activists were arrested for pouring blood-red dye into a pond at the U.S. embassy to protest American arms sales to Israel.
Will McCallum was taken into custody alongside five other activists on Thursday after they poured some 300 liters of red biodegradable dye into the pond outside the U.S. embassy in Nine Elms, south-west London.
Greenpeace said the move was aimed at drawing attention to the US government’s continued sale of lethal weapons to Israel, which have been widely used in the genocidal war on Gaza.
McCallum was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause criminal damage, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Areeba Hamid, Greenpeace UK’s co-executive director, defended the act of protest. “These arrests are further proof that the right to protest is under attack in the U.K. This protest used biodegradable pond dye that is designed to disperse and wash away naturally.”
“U.S. weapons continue to fuel an indiscriminate war that’s seen bombs dropped on schools and hospitals, entire neighborhoods blasted to rubble, and tens of thousands of Palestinian lives obliterated. As the biggest supplier of weapons to the Israeli military, the US government bears a heavy responsibility for the horrors unfolding in Gaza,” he said.
Greenpeace UK is calling for the British and U.S. governments to impose a total arms embargo on Israel.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed the arrests but noted that the pond was accessible via a public footpath and that there was no breach of the embassy’s perimeter.
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