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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Emine Sinmaz

Why did 30 Met officers kick the door down at a teenage tea and biscuits meeting in a Quaker house?

Zahra Ali and Lia-Anjali Lazarus pose outside near a wall
Zahra Ali and Lia-Anjali Lazarus were among the six protesters arrested by the Metropolitan police at the Quaker meeting house on St Martin’s Lane in London. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

When six young women gathered in central London to discuss the climate crisis and the war in Gaza, the setting could not have been more appropriate. The building in which they sat was a Quaker meeting house, the home of a movement whose centuries-long history is rooted in protest and a commitment to social justice. On the table were cups of jasmine tea, ginger biscuits and a selection of vegan cheese straws.

But the events that brought this apparently convivial gathering to an abrupt end have sparked protests of a different kind and raised questions about how justice is administered by the UK’s largest and most embattled police force.

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