London police yesterday deployed a sweeping security cordon around Heathrow Airport and made seven arrests to thwart climate activists’ efforts to shut down Europe’s busiest travel hub using drones.
Campaigners from Heathrow Pause — an offshoot of the Extinction Rebellion group backed by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg — had hoped to disrupt the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers from across the world over the weekend, but their first miniature device failed to take flight after receiving no signal from its hand-held remote control.
“They are jamming — we can’t get the signal,” one campaigner said in a video posted on social media from what appeared to be the airport’s outer edge. “The passengers will be happy. We are not happy.”
A London police spokesman refused to confirm or deny the use of jamming devices.
“We do not discuss security tactics,” the spokesman said.
However, the department said that it was imposing a “dispersal order” under a criminal statute act covering “anti-social behavior” in areas surrounding the airport’s vast grounds through tomorrow morning.
Heathrow rules stipulate that it must temporarily close should a drone be spotted within its 5km exclusion zone.
However, it was expected to make exceptions should this involve miniature drones flying close to the ground and away from runways or flight paths — rules Heathrow Pause intends to keep to.
“Like-minded citizens just know that what we are doing is not a criminal act,” group member Sylvia Dell said as she prepared to fly her own drone in the coming days.
The retired mother-of-four said she was stirred to action by a UN report warning governments that they had 12 years left to stop the Earth from warming to dangerous levels.
“We’re the fire alarm ringing in the middle of the night telling people to wake up, your house is on fire,” Dell said.
The group’s members have met airport representatives and the police to arrange precautionary measures aimed at avoiding accidents.
They had hoped to fly the drones at head height at hourly intervals that could keep the airport closed continuously for up to five days.
“You need to make disruption painful before the authorities take notice,” Dell said.
Dell said that she faced “years” in jail because of two prior arrests during an Extinction Rebellion protest that ground parts of London to a halt for more than a week in April.
“Prison is a terrifying prospect, [but] I find the prospect of not acting and allowing the world to collapse — that’s more terrifying for me,” she said.
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