London: UK police drew condemnation Saturday after arresting leading members of the anti-monarchy group Republic as they prepared to protest along the procession route for the coronation of King Charles III.
London’s Metropolitan Police force detained six organisers from the pressure group and seized hundreds of their placards, Republic said.
Republic chief executive Graham Smith was among those detained near Trafalgar Square, before the group had a chance to wave the signs declaring “Not my king”.
“The whole core team of Republic is still being detained,” the group said on Twitter some seven hours after the arrests and well after the coronation ceremony. “Is this democracy?”
The Met tweeted that four people were held “on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance”.
“We seized lock-on devices,” it added, referring to newly outlawed contraptions used by demonstrators to attach themselves to each other, an object or the ground.
But the detentions prompted swift criticism from Human Rights Watch, which called the arrests “incredibly alarming”.
“This is something you would expect to see in Moscow, not London,” the rights organisation’s UK director, Yasmine Ahmed, said in a statement.
“Peaceful protests allow individuals to hold those in power to account — something the UK government seems increasingly averse to.”