ANTI-COLONIAL activists faced charges of serious organised crime in a London court today for climbing the Houses of Parliament to hang a giant letter late last year.

The three activists for Africans Rising scaled the building on November 12 2020, to place a 10m banner calling for an honest acknowledgement of Britain’s colonial past.

It stated that Britain was the largest coloniser across the globe and called for the cancellation of debt and for reparations payments for Africa.

The letter said that Britain “benefited from and perpetuated the slave trade and thus owns a particular responsibility to redress the injustices of the past.”

Ben Wheeler, Daisy Pearson and Rob Callender appeared in the City of London magistrates’ court today, charged under section 128 of the Serious Organised Crime Act.

If convicted, they face up to six months in prison.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn thanked activists who raise issues of reparations and said that social and political change begins with protesting.

He said: “In a democratic society, you have to defend the right to protest.

“It is a fundamental right, and it’s actually there in the universal declaration in the European Convention and in many other global statutes.

“But you’ve also got to recognise what people were protesting about and what arguments they are making.

“Colonialism and imperialism has left most of the world very poor and made other parts of the world very rich.

“The debates and the issue about reparations needs to continue.”

Ahead of the hearing, Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said: “It should be a crime in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a climate emergency, for the richest banks and richest countries on Earth to drain so many developing countries of desperately needed resources.

“But this is considered normal and lawful in our global economy. If there’s any hope for a better world, we must protest this.

“In fact, the act of peaceful protest to highlight this moral bankruptcy, far from being a crime, should be seen as one of the most responsible acts of global citizenship.”

The hearing concluded after the Morning Star went to print.