• Our field correspondent, Thanvir Khan, reported firsthand from the protest on Wednesday, documenting the arrest and subsequent release of the CAGE detainees.
• Police tried to disperse a peaceful protest by viciously attacking an 18-year-old and aggressively handling and arresting a woman for trying to protest peacefully.
Simply holding up a placard of Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman with coconuts was enough to have these five peaceful protesters arrested in a public space. This all kicked off a few months ago when Maria Hussein was charged with the same comparison on a placard of Suella Braverman, Rishi Sunak, and a coconut. Her court case was on Wednesday, and the protesters could be seen near the court, showing solidarity in the best way possible by copying the action of the protest.
Protest at the police station
Protests soon followed at Hammersmith police station, where the detainees were taken, and not too long after another CAGE member was arrested after leading the chants in the protest.
Shezana Hafiz, another member of CAGE who was leading the protest near where the detainees were kept, was also arrested after walking into the police station to use the bathroom. It was later revealed that she was arrested because an Asian police officer had felt offended by the chants.
The evening mayhem was marred with police brutality.
As the evening kicked in, with protests going well into the night, police presence started to rise, with officers silently crowding around the protesters. It was not clear what the police objectives were, as they mainly stood on the road, seemingly to prevent protesters from blocking it.
It was only later revealed what the real intentions of the police were, and that was to remove all peaceful protesters from the pavement, causing tension to rise rapidly between protesters and police.
It was not too long after that police stopped a protester from playing a drum and began to arrest her because she refused.
As the violent arrest was taking place, a police officer was then recorded pushing an 18-year-old individual on the floor, causing her to bleed.
After the violent attack, things were escalating fast, with the crowd of protesters becoming more angry by the second. Despite the fact that even after the sun had set, the detainees had not been released, and then the police decided to do a brutal crackdown on protesters, the smell of sulfur in the air only became stronger. It would not be long before things would transition from a back and forth to a full-on riot out of police brutality. Not too long after the police attack on the young 18-year-old did the first detainee get released. According to witnesses, the police hurried the detainee out to deescalate the situation quickly. The first detainee to be released was the director of CAGE, Rabbani.
Protesters celebrated while calling for other detainees to be released
Not too long after the first release, the second, third, and fourth detainees are also released.
After being detained in detention for more than 10 hours and not being able to call or message people or family for hours on end, CAGE director Rabbani voiced support for the oppression faced at the hands of the law:
‘This is nothing to do with coconuts this is an excuse of an arrest to reflect people who are exploiting their skin colour and racial identity to provide cover for a genocide going on in Palestine. That’s what its about and that’s what we need to keep focus on.’
It can be seen that the CAGE director has indeed directed attention and focus back to Palestine, stating that the reason for the arrest in the first place was to reflect on what can be seen as referring to Sunak and Braverman.
The last and final detainee was released
After a long night, police came out of the station, announcing that the last and final detainee would be released at 4:00 a.m. Likely as a way to disperse the remaining protesters from the area. Interestingly, the last CAGE member, Shezana, who was arrested for simply chanting about coconuts, was released at 1:30 a.m. She, too, was cheered and welcomed by the crowd.
