Sev­en men who were ar­rest­ed dur­ing a scrap iron protest in Clax­ton Bay were each grant­ed $5,000 own bail yes­ter­day.

They were held at Cedar Hill Road, near Tem­ple Street, on Thurs­day night and charged with re­sist­ing ar­rest and dis­or­der­ly be­hav­iour.

The men ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Armi­na De­onar­i­nesingh in the San Fer­nan­do Charge Court.

When the mag­is­trate read the charges to them in­di­vid­u­al­ly, they plead­ed not guilty. The men were rep­re­sent­ed by dif­fer­ent at­tor­neys, in­clud­ing CJ Williams and Frank Git­tens.

Those charged were Keanu Cum­mings, Nigel Guer­ra, Shan­non Ed­wards, Mark Ram­para­dath, Nigel Mitchel, Daniel Fa­bi­en and Richie Mun­gal.

The charges were laid by Con­sta­bles Fran­cis, Mo­hammed Mathu­ra, Lange, Ed­wards and Lake.

The protests, which start­ed on Mon­day, are in re­sponse to Gov­ern­ment’s six-month ban on scrap iron and cop­per ex­port.

A TTPS re­lease yes­ter­day said the of­fi­cers, from the South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, were on pa­trol be­tween 8 pm and 12 mid­night on Thurs­day, when they were alert­ed to a protest in­ci­dent in­volv­ing scrap iron deal­ers and work­ers.

The of­fi­cers re­spond­ed and ar­rest­ed the sev­en men, who are be­tween the ages of 20 to 41 and from the Clax­ton Bay area. Sev­er­al oth­er peo­ple who were at the protest elud­ed cap­ture, the re­lease added.

The men are ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court on Sep­tem­ber 18.