NOTTINGHAM, England (ABP) — Twenty-four environmental protesters, led by a British Baptist minister, were arrested Sept. 24 for breaching the security perimeter at the Nottingham East Midlands airport.
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the protesters cut through fences around the airport's perimeter and sat on the runway, causing flight delays. Police arrested them for violating the nation's Aviation Security Act.
According to a press release from the group, called Plane Stupid, the protesters sat on the tarmac to protest short-haul flights within the United Kingdom. Such flights are a major contributor to global climate change, they said. According to the United Nations, climate change kills 160,000 people a year.
“[T]he science of climate change now means that flying is a sin,” said the minister, Malcolm Carroll, according to the press release. He noted that British Prime Minister Tony Blair “has known for years that climate change presents the biggest danger to life on earth, so why doesn't he do the Christian thing and ban unnecessary and unsustainable short-haul flights?”
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