{"id":356959,"date":"2025-08-19T14:03:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T14:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/356959\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T14:03:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T14:03:17","slug":"protester-arrested-for-wearing-plasticine-action-shirt-to-westminster-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/356959\/","title":{"rendered":"Protester arrested for wearing \u2018Plasticine Action\u2019 shirt to Westminster rally"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Breaking<\/p>\n

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\"Breaking<\/p>\n

A protester was arrested for wearing a T-shirt with the words \u201cPlasticine Action\u201d on it \u2013 on the day of a mass gathering in Parliament Square<\/a> in London.<\/p>\n

Miles Pickering, from Brighton, admitted the T-shirt was designed to look like the logo of Palestine Action<\/a>, the protest group banned last month<\/a> after activists <\/a>broke into RAF Brize Norton<\/a> in Oxfordshire and sprayed two military planes with red paint. <\/p>\n

The Terrorism Act 2000 makes it illegal to wear anything supporting a banned organisation.<\/p>\n

But on Mr Pickering\u2019s T-shirt, inside the letter \u201co\u201d was an image of the plasticine character Morph, and the text underneath the logo read: \u201cWe oppose AI-generated animation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Miles<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Miles Pickering, from Brighton, admitted the T-shirt was designed to look like the logo of Palestine Action (David McHugh\/Brighton Pictures)<\/p>\n

Some 532 other demonstrators were arrested<\/a> at the pro-Palestinian rally in Westminster on 9 August.<\/p>\n

Mr Pickering, an engineer, told The Guardian<\/a> that an officer had glanced at his top and told him: \u201cRight, you\u2019re nicked,\u201d before taking him to Scotland Yard. <\/p>\n

He said supporters were taking photographs of him and \u201ceveryone was laughing at how silly it was that I was getting arrested for being a plasticine terrorist\u201d.<\/p>\n

He claimed a senior officer asked the arresting officer whether he could arrest Mr Pickering under section 12, which could have brought a more serious charge of supporting a proscribed group.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The arresting officer] said: \u2018No, I can\u2019t.\u2019 And they said: \u2018Why not?\u2019 He said: \u2018Because he hasn\u2019t got Palestine Action written on him. He\u2019s got Plasticine Action written on him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that five minutes later, the arresting officer told him: \u201cI\u2019ve got good news and I\u2019ve got bad news.\u201d The \u201cgood news\u201d was that he was de-arresting Mr Pickering.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I said: \u2018What\u2019s the bad news?\u2019 He said: \u2018It\u2019s going to be really embarrassing for me.\u2019 And then I walked free, while all the real heroes are the people that are actually getting arrested,\u201d the demonstrator said.<\/p>\n

Mr Pickering is selling copies of the T-shirt to raise money for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt kind of works, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like we are just going to mock you for your ridiculous decision to proscribe a protest group. It\u2019s just so important that our rights to protest do not get diminished.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said:\u201cShortly after 14:00hrs on Saturday, 9 August officers on duty in Parliament Square arrested a man on suspicion of an offence under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time of his arrest, the man was wearing a scarf that partially obscured the slogan on his t-shirt which officers believed read Palestine Action.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was taken to one of the nearby prisoner processing points where, once officers realised the t-shirt actually read Plasticine Action, he was de-arrested and was free to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-356959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115055808111063737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}