FOUR women have been arrested following a major protest in a Glasgow shopping street.
Red paint was sprayed onto the Sainsbury's at the top of Buchanan Street by protesters from This is Rigged, who also glued themselves to the ground.
There was a significant police presence around the shop with five vans spotted outside. Officers in white forensics suits eventually managed to unglue those involved from the floor.
A poster of the Sainsbury's CEO Simon Roberts with devil horns on his head had been stuck to a window of the shop.
The words "Sainsbury's is rigged. CEO paid 229 times more than his employees" were on the poster.
This is Rigged posted images of the protest on Instagram.
By around 10:10am, the street had been cleared of protesters and the police left. Buchanan Street was also re-opened.
The group yesterday took responsibility for a demonstration targeting the Stone of Destiny at Edinburgh Castle, which led to three arrests.
Members previously demanded that the Scottish Government vocally oppose all new oil and gas licences which was met in September when Humza Yousaf spoke out against the Rosebank oil field development.
This is Rigged issued two demands this week - that supermarkets reduce the price of baby products to March 2021 prices, and that the Scottish Government fund a community food hub per every 500 households
Campaigners claimed to have “smashed the glass with pink hammers and spray-painted the words ‘Is Treasa Tuath Na Tighearna’ (the Gaelic slogan of the Highland Land League, which translates to ‘The People Are Mightier Than A Lord’) onto the glass, alongside the group’s logo".
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "Around 8.20 am on Thursday, 16 November 2023, police were called to a report of a staged protest and vandalism outside a supermarket on Buchanan Street, Glasgow.
"Four women have been arrested in connection with the incident and enquiries are ongoing."
One protester said: “I’m taking action today because a country where corporations like Sainsbury’s can continue to make profit while millions of people go hungry, is a rigged one. We cannot allow business to go on as usual while this is happening.”
Another demonstrator told The National: “This is really about the cost of living crisis that we're all facing.
“The CEO’s face has been plastered onto the front of Sainsbury's, he gets paid 229 times more than the average worker does, which is obscene.
"This is Rigged is launching two new demands - the first demand is that supermarkets are to bring the prices of essential baby products back to what they were in 2021, so that'll bring it down by approximately a quarter.
“The prices just keep going up and people just simply cannot afford food, essential items.
"The other demand is for the government to establish and fund community hubs, one per 500 households, which comes to approximately 4000 across Scotland.
“These are places where people can go to for three hot meals a day if they need to - a welcoming, dignified atmosphere - because that's what we need when we're facing times where we're looking at food crashes because of the climate crisis.”
