Doctors for XR forcibly removed from JP Morgan building
Doctors who staged a ‘die in’ outside the JP Morgan building as part of ongoing Extinction Rebellion protests have been forcibly removed by police.
This morning more than 60 doctors, nurses and midwives arrived outside the JP Morgan offices in Canary Wharf to demand an end to fossil fuel financing by banks.
Protestors held banners and chalk-sprayed the words ‘CODE RED’ on the building while others staged a ‘die in’ in front of the doors to symbolise the deaths caused by climate breakdown.
Dr Chris Newman, General Practitioner and co-founder of Doctors for Extinction Rebellion said, “climate change is at our door, and has entered our hospitals. JP Morgan is risking the lives of vulnerable children around the world, as well as my patients and my family.
“I hope that some of the workers in Canary Wharf will realise today how culpable their companies are and begin to work together to change their direction. Not in a few years – but today,” he added.
Maggie Faye, a registered Dementia Nurse said: “we know from recent research that fossil fuel air pollution causes 1 in every 5 deaths, from heart disease and dementia to lung cancer and cot death.
Faye continued: “we must act now to prevent people dying and suffering unnecessarily.”
Protestors who were glued to plant pots have now been removed by police and taken away in handcuffs.
Today’s action comes as part of XR’s “Impossible Rebellion,” a mass civil disobedience campaign held over two weeks in the build up to the UN’s COP26 climate summit.
Over 485 green rabble rousers have been arrested since the protests began last week, adding to some 2,000 XR protestors who have faced prosecution since 2019.
This week activists have caused major disruption in Canada. Activists have blocked roads over Tower Bridge and London Bridge; vandalised the front of the Guildhall and Standard Chartered Bank; and broke windows at the JP Morgan building in Embankment.
JP Morgan has become a focal point of XR protests because of a Rainforest Action Network report which identified the bank as the largest global financier of fossil fuel projects, describing their targets as “flatly insufficient,” to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
JP Morgan gave no comment on the protests.
Read more: Extinction Rebellion blocks roads outside Bank of England