London’s Metropolitan Police have banned a group of protesters from demonstrating outside a migrant hotel in Canary Wharf over alleged harassment of the occupants.
On Sunday, protests were once again staged outside the Britannia International Hotel in Canary Wharf after a group of supposed asylum seekers were bused to the building in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Initially, the protest was dominated by large groups of women and mothers dressed in pink. They were seen carrying Union Jack and St George cross flags and messages reading “protect our children”.
“We are not far right, but we are not far wrong. Don’t gamble with our lives, stop the boats,” a banner seen at the protest read. Later, the protest was crashed by a group of masked men who lit flares.
Following the protest, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that it issued a ban against the troublemaker group from staging any further demonstrations outside of the four-star financial district hotel for the next 28 days.
In a statement on social media, the London police force said: “Officers policed a protest for a considerable time today but a group remained who were harassing occupants of the hotel and staff, trying to prevent people accessing the hotel to make deliveries and making concerted efforts to breach the fencing and access the hotel.
“Their actions went well beyond protest to harassment and we used powers under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001 to order that specific group to leave and not return for 28 days.
“If a different group wishes to protest in the vicinity of the hotel they are not banned from doing so, providing they do so lawfully.”
Initially, there were concerns that all protesters had been banned, but as reported by The Express, the clarification asserted the ban was limited to the flare-lighting group only.
Meanwhile, Essex Police also announced restrictions against protests surrounding the Bell Hotel in Epping, which became a flashpoint last month after an illegal migrant from Ethiopia staying in the hotel was accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl from the area.
According to the Essex Live local news outlet, police mandated that all protests end by 8:30 pm last night and that they be contained to a specific area across the street from the hotel. The police force also issued a ban on face coverings until the early hours of Monday morning.
Essex Police previously faced criticism after admitting they had escorted far-left counter demonstrators to and from the site of a previous anti-migrant hotel protest. Footage on social media showed that some of those escorted by the police were young masked males.
Over the weekend, protests were also staged across the country, including in Manchester, Newcastle, and the London borough of Islington. Masked Antifa-style leftists were seen clashing with police outside the Thistle City Barbican Hotel in Islington at a counterdemonstration supported by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
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