Activist climbs and occupies Washington bridge for FOUR DAYS in protest against Iran war

An activist has climbed and occupied Washington bridge for four days in a protest against the Iran war and the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

Former jeweller Guido Reichstadter, 45, from Florida, identified himself on social media as the man on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington DC.

He began scaling the curved bridge shortly before 2pm (7pm BST) on Friday, and said he was calling for the end of the Iran war and to warn people of the "imminent danger" of AI.

He said: "I'm calling on the people of the United States to bring an immediate end to the Trump regime's illegal war on Iran and the removal of the regime power through mass nonviolent direct action and non-cooperation."

On Monday evening, he said he planned to leave the bridge on Tuesday afternoon after spending four days on top of the 51 metre high bridge, completed in 2021.

On social media, Mr Reichstadter said he was working to mobilise direct action against artificial intelligence.

In 2022, he tied his neck with a bike lock to the fence of the Supreme Court to protest the decision to overturn Roe v Wade before police released him without charge.

And weeks later, he would scale the Frederick Douglass Bridge for the first time time, where he would remain for 24 hours.

The serial protester moved to San Francisco last year and co-founded activist organisation Stop AI, which have conducted hunger strikes outside the offices of AI company Anthropic, and made headlines by serving OpenAI CEO Sam Altman a subpoena while he was onstage at San Francisco's Sydney Goldstein Theater.

He is set to face trial this month for allegedly locking the doors of the OpenAI offices shut with a steel chain.

On February 23, Mr Reichstadter conducted a walking hunger strike in order to "end the development of artificial general intelligence in California and the immediate end to the use, operation and construction of all data centers".

His group, Stop AI's mission statement calls for "a broad coalition of everyday people to engage in non-violent resistance" to take action against technological development which could "distract, deceive, divide, control, exploit and eliminate us".

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The father-of-two scaled the 51 metre bridge, unfurled a large black banner which he claimed represented shame and grief, wore a shirt which read "END WAR", and set up a tent which he strapped to the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge.

On a phone call he told the Washington Post he had to do something after seeing "kids getting blown up on the opening salvo of the war".

Police arrived to intervene when the protester was halfway to two-thirds up the arch and attempted to persuade Mr Reichstadter to leave the bridge.

Washington officials have closed down lanes of traffic and attempted to contact him through journalist Ford Fischer, who was asked by Mr Reichstadter to document the climb.

Mr Fischer said: "There’s no reason to send a firefighter to the top when he’s absolutely not suicidal, right?

"He’s not trying to come down unsafely. He’s trying to stay up there until he doesn’t want to anymore, and then his wish is to come down kind of on his own."

On Monday, the Floridian ran out of water and was nearly out of phone charge, but he received support from groups such as Code Pink, a self-described feminist grassroots organisation.

As he announced that he would soon be leaving the bridge, he said: "It is only with the passive compliance of million - our obedience - our willingness to continue to do what's expected of us: to go to work, to school, to pay our rents, our mortgages and our taxes, that the Trump regime can remain in power and these wars continue."