A man arrested for immigration offences in London was released after protesters gathered for hours to block a van he was in from leaving.
Footage from the scene showed a crowd of people sitting on the ground in front of the vehicle in Peckham, southeast London.
Metropolitan Police officers were called to Evan Cook Close shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Saturday “to a report of protesters obstructing immigration officers” and said officers remained at the scene until shortly before 5 p.m.
A police spokesman said: “Officers attended and found a van was being prevented from leaving the location. One man has been arrested by immigration enforcement officers for immigration offences.”
Met Police confirmed the man has since been released on bail.
Eleanor Janega, one of the protesters, told the PA news agency that they had been alerted that “there was an immigration raid in process” and had come down to “block it.”
An activist with a group called Stand Up To Racism, who gave her name only as Nicola, said police “tried to arrest a number of activists at the front” but gave up as “they were held onto by others.”
Nicola told PA, “After a lot of protest, the police announced that they were going to release him [the arrested man] and it took, I don’t know, about half an hour for them to actually open the doors so we all stayed and called for this to happen quickly.”
The Home Office said that preventing immigration enforcement teams from doing their job is “unacceptable.”
“Blocking or obstructing them will not deter them from undertaking the duties that the public rightly expect them to carry out,” said a spokeswoman.
This is not the first time pro-immigration activists in the UK have succeeded in forcing the authorities to release people arrested on suspected immigration offences.
Police Scotland later confirmed they had arrested and charged a 23-year-old woman and two men, aged 31 and 32, for public order offences. The three were told earlier this year that they would go on trial in early August.
On May 5 this year, more than 100 protesters gathered in the Scottish capital Edinburgh to block what they said was an “immigration raid,” after it was reported that two immigration vans had arrived at Nicolson Square.
The Home Office said two people were found to be in breach of immigration laws and were placed on immigration bail, adding that the protesters had no impact on the outcome of the operation.
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