Members of the environmental group Just Stop Oil have sprayed orange paint in London on the facades of the Home Office, MI5 (domestic intelligence), the Bank of England and the headquarters of the News Corp media group.
“These buildings were chosen because they represent the pillars that support and maintain the power of the fossil fuel economy, government, security, finance and the media,” claimed Just Stop Oil, which campaigns for the immediate halt to any new oil or gas project, in a press release.
A total of eight people were arrested, police said.
“The age of fossil fuels should be long over, but the insidious ramifications of fossil fuel interests continue to corrupt our politics, government and the media as they have for decades,” a spokesperson said. of the group.
Read alsoAfter Van Gogh's "Sunflowers", the eco-friendly group Just Stop Oil attacks an Aston Martin dealership
Among the sites targeted on Monday is the London headquarters of News Corp, the American group of Australian tycoon Rupert Murdoch, which notably owns the reference daily The Times and the tabloid The Sun in the United Kingdom.
The group's British print shops were blocked in September 2020 by activists from the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion, disrupting the distribution of newspapers.
Just Stop Oil has carried out a series of actions since the beginning of the month in the United Kingdom, where activists tarred the wax statue of King Charles at Madame Tussauds, threw tomato soup on the "Sunflowers" of Van Gogh at the National Gallery or spray paint an Aston Martin dealership.
Activists repeatedly blocked streets in London over the weekend and faced the wrath of motorists who sometimes forced them out manu militari.
A man and a woman, for example, shot activists to clear their way on Sunday while a motorist shouted at them that she had to pass because she had a sick child in her car.
On Saturday, a London police official said police had made 651 arrests since October 1 and that Just Stop Oil's actions had required 7,900 attendances by law enforcement.