British police raid Westminster Quaker Meeting House in London and arrest Youth Demand activists and journalist
Google Maps Image of Westminster Quaker Meeting House.
CNN reports: “British police raided a Quaker meeting house in London on Thursday [March 27] and arrested six women attending a meeting on climate change and the war in Gaza, according to a statement from Quakers UK.”
That CNN news report adds: “Quakers, a nickname for members of the Religious Society of Friends, follow a religious tradition that originally grew from Protestant Christianity in the 17th century. Quakers have a long history of supporting protest movements and non-violence is one of their core beliefs.”
Quakers in Britain
The day following the raid, Friday March 28, Quakers in Britain stated: “Just before 7.15pm more than 20 uniformed police, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Meeting House.”
Their statement further noted: “Quakers in Britain strongly condemned the violation of their place of worship which they say is a direct result of stricter protest laws removing virtually all routes to challenge the status quo.”
Youth Demand
Press TV reports: “On Thursday, 30 Met police officers stormed into the Youth Demand Welcome Talk at the Quaker Meeting House in Westminster and arrested six young women, including one attending their first ever welcome talk and a journalist.”
A Youth Demand spokesperson said the [“Welcome Talk”] meeting was “an opportunity to share plans for non-violent civil resistance actions” due to take place in April, and that one of those arrested was a journalist.
One of those arrested was student Ella Grace-Taylor who said: “By arming Israel and refusing to call what is happening a genocide, they are perpetrating mass slaughter. Hundreds of children were killed in Palestine in the last week. We won’t stop saying it.”
Video statement on the arrests by Youth Demand.
The Youth Demand website is here, their Instagram account is here.
The Quakers
The Quaker statement following the arrests highlights: “Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest, acting themselves from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet. Many have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage and prison reform.”
In that statement, Paul Parker, recording clerk for Quakers in Britain, said: “This forceful removal of young people holding a protest group meeting clearly shows what happens when a society criminalises protest.”
The Westminster Quaker Meeting House website notes: “Quaker Meetings for Worship have been held in Westminster weekly since 1655. Former Meeting Houses were in Pall Mall, the Strand and near to Westminster Abbey. The current Meeting House was damaged by wartime bombs, and re-built in the 1950s.”
PBI and Quakers
Peace Brigades International (PBI) was co-founded by Murray Thomson of the Ottawa Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Three other co-founders were Friends: Charlie Walker of Philadelphia, Dan Clark from San Francisco, and Lee Stern of the New York area. That founding meeting took place on Grindstone Island where the Canadian Friends Service Committee had previously operated a Peace Education Centre.
JoLeigh Commandant, a Toronto Quaker, became the first staff person for PBI’s Central American program. Alaine Hawkins, a Toronto Quaker, was the coordinator of the Central America Project in from 1986 to 1991. In 1996, Toronto Quaker Alan Dixon was the coordinator of the PBI North American Project. Previously, in 1990 he was part of PBI’s Emergency Response Network and in 1992 he took a training to be a field volunteer and was part of the PBI team in El Salvador for six months. Karen Ridd, an attender at the Winnipeg Monthly Meeting, was a PBI field volunteer in El Salvador in 1989, and is now a staff person with the Canadian Friends Service Committee.
The raid on the Westminster Quaker Meeting House in London is a developing story and we continue to follow this.
Photo: “Youth Demand activists protest against the Gaza genocide outside Keir Starmer’s house in London, April 2024.”
Further reading: Peace Brigades International remembers the life and activism of (American Quaker peace activist) David Hartsough (March 27, 2025).
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