The United Kingdom (UK) on Saturday arrested six leading members of the anti-monarchy group Republic.
AFP reports that they were arrested as they prepared to protest along the route of a procession for the coronation of King Charles III.
A Republic activist told AFP in London’s Trafalgar Square that “They have arrested six of our organizers and seized hundreds of placards, they won’t tell us why they’ve arrested them or where they’re being held.”
The Guardian UK reports that the chief executive of Republic, Graham Smith, had been collecting drinks and placards for demonstrators at the main site of the protest on Trafalgar Square when he was detained by police on the Strand in central London.
The group had been walking behind a rental van full of hundreds of placards when they were stopped by police.
The Met police had tweeted earlier this week that they would have a “low tolerance” of those seeking to “undermine” the day.
It was further reported that a director at Republic, Harry Stratton, who arrived as Smith and the others were detained, said “They were collecting the placards and bringing them over when the police stopped them.
“The guys asked why and they were told: we will tell you that once we have searched the vehicle. That’s when they arrested the six organizers. We asked on what grounds they had been arrested but they wouldn’t say. It is a surprise as we had had a number of meetings with the police. They had been making all the right noises.”
The arrest, at about 7.30a.m, came as hundreds of anti-monarchist protesters had gathered at Trafalgar square with large flags and wearing yellow T-shirts as they looked to catch both the eye of the world’s media and a king on his coronation day.
Positioned by London’s oldest statue of Charles I, who lost his head to republicans nearly 400 years ago, those preparing to dissent as Charles III’s coronation procession passed them conceded they were “heavily outnumbered”.
According to the report, as many as 2,000 protesters are expected to assemble below Nelson’s column by midday including representatives of the Swedish, Dutch and Norwegian republican movements
But the small huddle present early on Saturday morning, under an ominous grey sky, were surrounded by both those out to celebrate and the columns of police officers marching into their positions.
