James Goddard is a key figure in pro-Brexit protests outside the UK Parliament. Twitter
James Goddard is a key figure in pro-Brexit protests outside the UK Parliament. Twitter
James Goddard is a key figure in pro-Brexit protests outside the UK Parliament. Twitter
James Goddard is a key figure in pro-Brexit protests outside the UK Parliament. Twitter

Brexit

James Goddard charged with harassment of MPs

The yellow vest organiser was charged over events in December and January

The National

February 20, 2019

  • English
  • Arabic

One of the men behind London’s “yellow vest” protests has been charged with harassing MPs.

James Goddard, 29, was also charged with causing racially aggravated alarm or distress in an incident outside the UK parliament on January 7.

The British yellow vest protests are inspired by the French gilet jaunes movement.

The French version began over fuel tax hikes and bloomed to encompass more general complaints with the status quo - in the UK, the protesters are generally pro-Brexit and anti-immigration.

Often seen sporting a yellow vest and recording opposing figures on his mobile phone, he was recently captured on video during an incident involving Conservative anti-Brexit MP Anna Soubry.

“On 5 February, the CPS received a file of evidence from the Metropolitan Police relating to two incidents outside Parliament on 19 December and 7 January involving an MP,” said a CPS spokesperson.

“Following a review of the evidence, the CPS has authorised the police to charge James Goddard, 29, with harassment.

He is also charged with two public order offences against a police officer.

Mr Goddard will appear in front of a judge at Westminster Magistrates Court on March 19.

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Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.

The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.

Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.

More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.

The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.

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November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.

May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.

February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.

December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.

July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.

May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.

New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.

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Born in RAK on December 9, 1983
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Her ambition is to spread UAE’s culture of love and acceptance through serving coffee, the country’s traditional coffee in particular.

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