Police yesterday stopped and searched youth arriving for the Camp for Climate Change a mile away from the protest camp at the northern perimeter of Heathrow airport and made them abandon any vehicles they were travelling in.
A police van waved down ‘suspicious’ vehicles.
People had to unload medical supplies and other equipment and carry them a mile on foot to the camp.
One of the protesters Isobelle Michel, a teacher, told News Line: ‘At the moment, the police are really hindering the setting up of the site for no good reason.
‘They are restricting access to vehicles and preventing them from coming anywhere near the site.
‘We are expecting about 2,000 people when the camp starts tomorrow.
‘There is a large programme of about one hundred workshops dealing with all issues related to climate change.’
Another young protester, Alice Davidson said: ‘It’s power games.
‘We’ve declared what we are doing as an autonomous village and they have declared that if it’s a village, it needs policing like any other village.
‘They haven’t let us bring our vans on site, containing a solar powered generator and wind turbine equipment as well as our medical supplies.
‘There are only a couple of hundred of us on site, setting up at present but we are expecting thousands.
‘It’s an education camp as well as a protest.
‘We would rather the police weren’t here so we can just do some very positive work.
‘Everything that comes on site is being checked by the police.
‘They are going through everyone’s bags and stuff.
‘There are random stop and searches and they have been taking people’s mobile phone imie numbers.
‘We have to walk all the gear a mile into the camp – food, water, medical supplies.
‘The police are walking onto the site any time, walking round wherever they want to go.’
About 1,800 officers from Surrey police, Thames Valley police, the Metropolitan Police, and British Transport Police, many of them armed, have been deployed to oversee the event.
Hayes and Harlington Labour MP John McDonnell expressed concern over the armed police operation against peaceful protesters.
Dozens of officers entered the Camp for Climate Change and held discussions with organisers during a morning inspection, while large numbers of police, many of them armed, stood by on the camp site perimeter.
Chief Superintendent Ian Thomas claimed that 25 officers had inspected the site yesterday morning at the landowner’s request.
Adding that the protesters were on the site illegally, Thomas said organisers had agreed to allow four officers to remain on the site.
A police spokesman said that the camp is on a sports ground belonging to Imperial College London and that the protest was peaceful.
Asked what the Prime Minister’s view was towards the climate change protestors at Heathrow, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman said that it was ‘a matter for the authorities and those who ran Heathrow with regards to disruptions’.
Brown’s spokesman added that people do ‘have the right to protest’, but the government felt that ‘any action that disrupted the operation of Heathrow would be unacceptable’.
Airport operator BAA has warned it will not allow passengers to be ‘harassed or obstructed’.
A Camp for Climate Change spokeswoman, Gemma Davis said: ‘We’re not here to try to disrupt passengers, we’re here to try to disrupt BAA.’
