City Airport Nine charged after demo

Nine people staged a protest at City Airport on Tuesday – disrupting air travel in order to highlight how black people suffer most from climate change. The campaign group Black Lives Matter, which was founded in the USA but has just begun to work in the UK, organised the demonstration.

The protestors reached the airport by rowing across the dock, which must be embarrassing for an airport which had improved its perimeter fence in recent years. The works made it more difficult for potential assailants to read the runways from the road – but the authorities appear to have forgotten to consider access from the water, or counted it only as a low risk.

The nine – four men and five women – are aged between 23 and 32. They were arrested at the airport and held in custody. They were charged with aggravated trespass and being “unlawfully airside within a restricted area of a plane”. The nine have been released on bail until a further hearing next week.

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