An activist disrupted a service in London's Westminster Abbey on Tuesday that was marking 200 years since Britain outlawed the slave trade — forcing guards to restrain him only three metres from British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Queen.

Protester Toyin Agbetu disrupted a service to mark the abolition of the slave trade at London's Westminster Abbey. He was escorted out by security guards and ushers.
(Stephen Hird/Associated Press)

The commotion began when Toyin Agbetu, who is black and the founder of the African-British human rights group Ligali, interrupted Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams mid-sermon and shouted at the dignitaries, saying they were a disgrace.

Agbetu, 39, then yelled "You should be ashamed," rose and rushed toward the altar.

He urged "all the Christians who are Africans" to walk out on the service.

"This is an insult to us," he shouted.

Security personnel escorted Agbetu out of the abbey, where police restrained him.

However, he continued his tirade outside, demanding the Queen apologize for her royal bloodline because it had long condoned the slave trade in the British colonies. One of her predecessors, Queen Elizabeth I, provided ships in 1561 so that slave trader John Hawkins could lead some of the first British slaving expeditions.

The service on Tuesday commemorated the 200th anniversary of the 1807 legislation that made the slave trade illegal within the British Empire.

Although Britain didn't make it illegal to have slaves until 1833, its bans led the way for other countries.

The transatlantic slave trade, which began around 1500, saw traders sail from Europe to Africa, where they traded or sold manufactured goods for slaves. Then they shipped the slaves — often crammed amid abysmal conditions into the vessels' holds — across the Atlantic, mostly to European colonies in the Americas and West Indies.

There, the slaves were sold or traded again for the raw materials of the New World, including cotton, sugar, coffee and valuable minerals, which were shipped back to Europe.

By the 18th century, all the major European powers were involved in the trade, which saw the enslavement of more than 11 million and perhaps as many as 25 million men, women and children.

Legacy of slavery 'hideously persistent': archbishop

At Westminster Abbey on Tuesday, Queen Elizabeth laid a wreath at the foot of a statue of abolitionist William Wilberforce, the politician who led Britain's abolition campaign.

In his sermon, Williams described the slave trade as one of the greatest horrors committed against human freedom, adding that people in Britain must acknowledge "our contribution" to the "universal sin."

The archbishop also said the legacies of the slave trade are still "hideously persistent" these days and that 12 million people still live in slavery around the world, more than a million of whom are children.