LONDON – When environmental protesters recently stopped traffic on the M25 freeway that circles London, one journalist, Charlotte Lynch, was standing on a bridge above reporting on the latest of the group’s disruptive demonstrations for her radio station, LBC.
Ms Lynch said that she had shown a press card carried by journalists in Britain to identify themselves to the police and explained that she had learned about where the protest would be held from social media. Nonetheless, she was held for five hours at a police station, where her DNA was collected and fingerprints were taken.
As environmentalists and climate change activists ratchet up their protests in Britain – employing tactics that disrupt everyday life – authorities are responding in kind with robust actions that have raised concerns that long-enshrined freedoms are being eroded. Mr Wagner fears that, in this increasingly confrontational context, basic rights such as freedom of expression and assembly are coming under ever greater pressure.