Monday 26 September 2022

Climate change protester sets his arm on fire during Laver Cup match

A climate change protester wearing a white t-shirt that said 'End UK Private Jets' set his arm on fire during a Laver Cup tennis match in London.

He ran onto the court at the O2 Arena on Friday during a tennis match between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Diego Schwartzman and briefly lit his arm and some of the court on fire.

It was followed by security stepping in and extinguishing the flame with his jacket and removing the protester from the court.

The End UK Private Jets group released a video shortly after the incident, which was filmed by the protester, named Kai, aged 20, explaining it prior to his stunt.

https://twitter.com/EndUKPrivateJet/status/1573339153978347521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1573339153978347521%7Ctwgr%5Eeebd25b946b593370b6aa2713d7f52056e328d14%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.energylivenews.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost-new.php

He said: “In a few hours time I'm going to go to the Laver Cup tennis tournament and set my arm on fire on the court. People are gonna say stuff like 'this is horrible', people in the stadium are going to be disturbed and anyone who hears about it is going to be really traumatised, especially if they've had experiences with things like self harm.

“Feelings of anger about this... I think it's right to feel angry about that because it's unjust, it's innocent people experiencing suffering. And I think humanity should have a responsibility to stop that sort of s*** happening, no one deserves to experience suffering, especially not young and vulnerable people.

“If we truly believe that... the way we act like that's true, the way we act like the principle is actually valid is by stopping the climate emergency as fast as possible.”

He went on: “Right now, we're on a path where hundreds and millions of people are going to be going through unimaginable suffering, which is social collapse, torture, starvation, drought and war.

“The government's response to that coming down the line is still flying around in private jets like everything's chill and so in other words, according to me, they're not acting on it seriously, because if they were then they'd be doing all they can to protect our futures.”

The protest took place as Roger Federer prepared to play the final match of his career.

The Laver Cup said in a statement: “A man accessed the court this afternoon and was promptly removed by security.

“Play was stopped briefly, he has been arrested and the situation is being handled by the police.”