The environmental campaign Just Stop Oil (JSO) launched a ten-day wave of direct action in April 2022. Protesters blockaded oil terminals and locked themselves on to tankers. By the end of the month there had been 1,000 arrests.
Most of those arrested were released ‘pending investigation’ (see p4) but have subsequently been served with injunctions forbidding them from going back to the terminals where they were arrested. It is the breach of these injunctions which has created a wave of new short-term prisoners. Some of these have now brought their struggle inside the prison walls.
Rather than view incarceration asan occupational hazard or time out to catch up on reading, the women in particular among the recent JSO prisoners have taken a different approach. Building on the actions of Insulate Britain – whose activists, when taken to trial, have refused to obey the dictates of the court, instead gluing themselves to court doors or spray-painting the outside of the court building – JSO has now taken this resistance right into the belly of the beast.
Just as the militant suffragettes of the early 20th century continued their fight within the prison walls, on 9 May eight JSO women prisoners at Foston Hall staged a sit-down protest on the exercise yard. Although their protest was peaceful, the prison guards reacted violently, handcuffing the women and pushing them around.
On 23 May JSO announced that all but one of the 23 activists then in prison had been released. But Michelle Charlesworth has been given a further term of imprisonment for contempt of court. JSO’s social media says: ‘Michelle has made a choice to resist the destruction of humanity and all life on Earth brought by fossil fuel companies and this government. And she is prepared to accept the consequences. She doesn’t need you to feel sorry for her or send her sympathy, she needs you to join her, to step up and take action.’
Nicki Jameson
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 288, June/July 2022
