British churches have united in expressing their concerns a couple of controversial police raid on a Quaker meeting house last month.
The incident on 27 March saw around 20 uniformed members of the Metropolitan Police forcefully enter the Westminster Quaker Meeting House.
The officers searched the premises and arrested six young women belonging to a bunch called Youth Demand.
Youth Demand are a civil disobedience group that concerns itself primarily with anti-climate change and anti-Israel causes. The group shouldn’t be affiliated to the Quakers but was using their premises to conduct meetings.
The group said it was meeting to plan further acts of protest and civil disobedience; nevertheless, police say the group was planning to bring London to a standstill.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the group, Churches Together in England, which represents a wide selection of Christian traditions, has expressed its dismay on the heavy-handed police tactics used on the day.
The group noted that on the day of the raid, a Quaker Elder was present and would have simply opened the door for them, thus avoiding the necessity for violent motion and damage to the premises.
In an open letter to Sir Mark Rowley, head of the Metropolitan Police, Bishop Mike Royal, general secretary of Churches Together in England, said that members of the group “support the principle of the fitting to peaceful protest and are deeply concerned at this unnecessary forced entry to a spot used for worship”.
Churches Together in England also urged the police to conduct a review into the incident and have asked for a gathering with Quaker representatives “to debate this matter further, to avoid such an incident happening in a spot of worship again”.
Copies of the open letter have also been sent to the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
