British reporter arrested for doing her job at Just Stop Oil protest

by Dan Fournier, published Saturday, Nov. 12, 10:30 EST on fournier.substack.com

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

On Tuesday, Leading Britain’s Conversation’s reporter Charlotte Lynch was heedlessly arrested by Hertfordshire Police while covering the Just Stop Oil protest which crippled M25, England’s busiest motorway, garnering national attention.

From a road bridge over the M25, the radio journalist had been reporting on eco-zealot activists who were demonstrating when she was approached by two police officers. She showed them her press card and told them she was reporting on the demonstration, yet the officers handcuffed, seized her devices, and arrested her on ‘conspiracy to commit a public nuisance’.

She was then put in a custody van and brought to the police station where she was held for five hours.

“It was absolutely terrifying being in a cell with a pad for a bed in one corner and a metal toilet in the other.”, asserted the distraught journalist before adding “I was just doing my job. What's also terrifying is what this means for press freedom. It was blindingly obvious I was a reporter.”

Ms Lynch called the ordeal "absolutely terrifying".

According to BBC News, Hertfordshire Police chief constable Charlie Hall said the force's officers had "been instructed to act as quickly as they can, using their professional judgement, to clear any possible protesters", but he "recognised the concerns over freedom of the press". "In advance of this, with regards to the arrest of the LBC journalist, the circumstances of the arrest have been internally reviewed," he said.

The police chief further added “Though the actions of the officers at the scene are understandable, in retrospect an arrest would not have been necessary.”

“I haven't been contacted by anybody from Hertfordshire Constabulary to apologise to me and to confirm that I will be de-arrested and my DNA removed from their records.”, affirmed Lynch.

The fact that they took her private biometric data, namely her DNA, during her arrest should be a terrifying prospect for any journalist; for, who knows what databases they will end up on and how it may be used against them in the future.

Just Stop Oil, the environmental activist group based in the U.K. uses civil resistance and direct actions in pursuit of their goal to completely halt new fossil fuel licensing and production.

Last month, two of their protesters caused an uproar around the world when they threw tomato soup Vincent van Gogh's 1888 work The Arles Sunflowers located in the National Gallery in London.

Former Shadow Attorney General Baroness Shami Chakrabarti stated to LBC: “If the police are now going to start arresting journalists for conspiracy to commit a public nuisance then they are effectively shutting down the free press, the free media, in this country,” continuing “and that means the public don't get the opportunity to judge for themselves whether the police have policed a particular demonstration well or badly, or indeed whether the protesters behaved well or badly. So this is very, very serious.”

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This article is also published in The Counter Signal.