Rahul Somvanshi
Two protesters disrupted the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield, calling for the halt of all new UK fossil fuel projects by the government. The disruption brought the match between Robert Milkins and Joe Perry to a halt. A man jumped on top of the table and poured a packet of orange powder over it.
However, a female protester was stopped from disrupting the match between Mark Allen and Fan Zhengyi on table two. The former world champion Stephen Hendry called the incident “scary” and doubted the reusability of the table.
Both protesters were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. Eddie Whittingham, the Just Stop Oil supporter who managed to disrupt the game is a 25 year old student at Exeter university
“I don’t want to be disrupting something that people enjoy, but we’re facing an extremely grave situation. Europe is experiencing its worst drought in 500 years. We’re seeing mass crop failure right now. We’re facing mass starvation, billions of refugees and civilisational collapse if this continues.”
“We can’t continue to sit back and act as if everything’s OK. If you want to do something to prevent the greatest crisis we’ve ever faced, go to juststopoil.org and sign up for a slow march from April 24th in London.”
Eddie Whittingham
The affected table was covered and will be re-clothed overnight, and the match between Allen and Zhengyi eventually resumed. The Milkins v Perry match will resume on Tuesday evening.
World Snooker Tour officials confirmed that the match between Allen and Zhengyi was set to resume after a delay of approximately 45 minutes. The Just Stop Oil group called on UK sporting institutions to join their civil resistance against the government’s “genocidal policies”.
One of the arrested protestors, Margaret Reid, 52, a former museum professional from Kendal, said:
“I did not take this action lightly, but I cannot remain a passive spectator while our government knowingly pushes us down a path to destruction. They are giving handouts of £236 million per week of our money, to the most profitable industry on earth, during a cost of living crisis. I can no longer justify watching from the side lines.”
“I am angry and heartbroken that I have found myself in a position where taking this sort of disruptive action is the only way to get heard.”
Margaret Reid
