The annual meeting of security group G4S has descended into chaos for the second year running after nine activists were bundled out by guards during protests against its operations in Israel.

Uniformed and plainclothes security staff intervened frequently at the meeting in London on Thursday. All those attend ing had been banned from bringing electronic devices into the venue.

G4S’s supply of security and screening equipment to the Israeli security services dominated a meeting during which only a small number of the questions from the floor focused on its financial performance.



Last year, protesters who gained entrance by acquiring shares in G4S were violently removed from the meeting when they spoke out against the company’s role in supplying Israeli prisons and the death of an Angolan man while he was being deported by G4S guards. Following the disruption last year, G4S confirmed that it would end its Israeli prison contracts within three years.



The 2014 protests were captured on film, which led to rigid security precautions being taken by the company this year. Everyone going into the AGM at the Excel centre, London, had to leave electronic devices in a locker before going through airport-style security, which included putting jackets through a scanner and guards using handheld scanners to frisk attendees. A G4S spokesmansaid the enhanced security measures were not down to any specific threat but were “entirely precautionary”.

Two lines of six uniformed security guards stood on each wall while plainclothes staff with G4S badges were in the audience at the event.

The ongoing protests mainly surround the company’s activities in Israel, where it provides CCTV and scanning equipment for prisons and security checkpoints.



At the beginning of the AGM, the chairman, John Connolly, said attempts to disrupt the “proper conduct” of the meeting would not be tolerated. Soon after he spoke, a protester was carried out after she threw shredded photographs of teenagers being held in Israeli prisons. “Stop hurting me. This is what you do to Palestinian prisoners in Israel all the time,” she shouted while being carried out by three guards.

Asked for the exact dates when the company would end its contracts in Israel, the chief executive, Ashley Almanza, said all G4S activity was in compliance with international law. “We do not employ people in any of these facilities,” he said. The company has said that it will not seek to renew contracts there when they lapse at the end of 2017.

Protesters said , G4S should sever ties with Israel immediately. Ryvka Barnard, spokeswoman for anti-poverty campaign group War on Want, said: “Their vague commitments serve only to distract from their continued failure to uphold their legal and ethical responsibilities.”

Connolly said they would have bigger reputational problems if the company started to end contracts early.

Throughout the two-hour meeting, protesters interrupted regularly, with some wearing masks representing Palestinian teenagers who are being held in Israeli prisons.

On one occasion, 10 security guards moved two men who started to chant: “Who supports the siege in Gaza? G4S does.” After the meeting, one of the men, Alex Martin, said he wanted to protest against the company’s actions and that his questions had not been answered adequately.