Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Climate Activists smash windows at The Department for Transport

press release | 16.01.2009 07:49 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | History | Social Struggles

Climate Suffragettes smashed glass front doors at The Department for
Transport early this morning in protest against the government's
decision to expand Heathrow.



At 4 am, three women, wearing red climate sashes, hurled bricks and
broke the glass doors of The Department for Transport, on Marsham
Street, London. Echoing the protests of the Suffragettes, they wrapped
their bricks in notes that read: 'NO THIRD RUNWAY, THE SUFFRA-JETS ARE
BACK before hurling them at the government building. They also
hurled green paint to symbolise the greenwash they heard from the
government today. They targeted the building as a direct response to
yesterday's decision to allow a third runway at Heathrow.

A spokeswoman said: "The government has opened the flood-gates for
radical action. Yesterday they sacrificed all of our futures and spat
in the face of democracy. The third runway is unwanted and is a
global threat. When they make democracy meaningless what other
reaction could they expect?

"We have less than ten years to turn climate change around. Women
cannot just stand by and let this government treat our futures as a
joke. We fight for the safety of humanity, and if the government will
only listen to the smash of windows, then so be it."

Noting that their elected MPs had been refused a vote on this issue, she added;

"The government has bypassed democratic process for the sake of
corporate profit. The Suffragettes died for the democratic rights that
the government so sweeps aside. We take our lead from our past to
defend our future."

press release

Additions

Video clip converted

16.01.2009 12:11

Short video clip of one of windows being smashed.

vidbod


Photo from Daily Mail

16.01.2009 15:11


Nice action. Next time lets see one hundred women doing the same thing in broad daylight.

smashing


A piece of writing by Silvya Pankhurst describing suffragette actions in 1911

16.01.2009 15:44

At school they told us about women throwing themselves under horses and chaining themselves to railings... a very watered down version of history. Sylvia Pankhurst describes the militant suffragette tactics and actions below...

"Street lamps were broken, Votes for Women was painted on the seats at Hampstead Heath, keyholes were stopped up with lead pellets, house numbers were painted out, chairs flung in the Serpentine, cushions of railway carriages slashed, flower-beds damaged, golf greens all over the country scraped and burnt with acid. A bowling green was cut in Glasgow, the turf in Duthie Park, Aberdeen. A mother and daughter, bearing an ancient name, spent much of their time travelling in trains in order to drop pebbles between the sashes of carriage windows, hoping the glass would smash on being raised. Old ladies applied for gun licences to terrify the authorities. Bogus telephone messages were sent calling up the Army Reserves and Territorials. Telegraph and telephone wires were severed with long-handled clippers; fuse boxes were blown up, communication between London and Glasgow being cut for for some hours. There was a window-smashing raid in West End club-land; the Carlton, the Junior Carlton, the Reform Club and others being attacked. A large envelope containing red pepper and snuff was sent to every Cabinet Minister; the Press reported that they all fell victims to the ruse. Boat-houses and sports pavilions in England, Ireland and Scotland, and a grand-stand at Ayr race-course were burnt down. Mrs. Cohen, a Leeds member of the deputation to Lloyd George, broke the glass of a jewel-case in the Tower of London. Works of art and objects of exceptional value became the target of determined militants. Thirteen pictures were hacked in the Manchester Art Gallery. Refreshment pavilions were burnt down in Regent's Park and Kew Gardens, where the glass in three orchid houses was smashed, and the plants, thus exposed, were broken and torn up by the roots. Empty houses and other unattended buildings were systematically sought out and set on fire, and many were destroyed, including Lady White's house near Staines, a loss of £4,000, Roughwood House, Chorley Wood, and a mansion at St. Leonard's valued at £10,000. There were fires at several houses in Hampstead Garden Suburb, at the Suburb Free Church, at Abercarn Church, Monmouthshire, in the Shipcoat Council Schools, at South Bromley Station on the London underground, and in a wood yard at Walham Green. Hugh Franklin set fire to an empty railway carriage; he was imprisoned and forcibly fed. An old cannon was fired near Dudley Castle, shattering glass and terrifying the neighbourhood. Bombs were placed near the Bank of England, at Wheatley Hall, Doncaster, at Oxted Station, and on the steps of a Dublin Insurance Office. Lloyd George's new house in process of erection at Walton-on-the-Hill was injured beyond repair by a bomb explosion. The story of a motor-car passing through the village at 4 a.m., two broken hat-pins, a hairpin, and a galosh indisputably feminine, found on the site, were the only traces of the incendiaries, Emily Wilding Davison and others, all of whom escaped undiscovered. That this was the work of the Suffragettes was usually made evident by literature deposited in the vicinity. In most cases the culprits had altogether disappeared and no clue to their identity was left. Where a capture was effected, the punishment varied considerably: up to nine months for breaking windows or the glass covering pictures; eighteen months or two years for arson. Miriam Pratt, in an unsuccessful attempt to burn an empty house, dropped her watch. Her uncle, a police constable in whose house she lived, identified the watch and gave evidence against her. (pp. 433-435.)"

Sylvia Pankhurst


That video again

16.01.2009 15:48

Video in other formats (why use youtube?)

rewind


Comments

Display the following 11 comments

  1. thats more like the Suffragettes — anarchist
  2. Great stuff, we must make this big — Old Timer
  3. Were they arrested and/or charged? — anon
  4. typo — Pankhurst
  5. not right — stub
  6. Video now appeared on youtube — here
  7. re: stub — stup
  8. window breaking — stup
  9. Anti Stub — Stubble
  10. See where these guys are coming from, but... — voiceofreason
  11. Impressed — anon
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech