In May and June, five people were up on charges arising from the April 2008 “Carnival Against the Arms Trade” at the EDO-MBM arms factory in Brighton. At the carnival, 800 people marched through police cordons into the factory car park and smashed windows and the managing director’s car.
Four people were found guilty by Brighton magistrates of aggravated trespass for entering the premises, though the case for this was flimsy: no business was going on as the factory was shut, and…
Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) welcomed the ruling on 21 May, by the court of appeal, that the Metropolitan police broke the law in its routine surveillance of lawful and peaceful activity, including storing photographs on police computers.
On 27 April 2005, police officers openly photographed and followed CAAT staff and supporters after they had attended an AGM of a public company, Reed Elsevier, in their capacity as shareholders, to question directors about the acquisition of…
This book is about a campaign against an arms fair in Australia that included a two-week-long attempt – with a large measure of success – to blockade all three entrances to the site – not only during the arms fair but the week before, when exhibitors were arriving to set up. I would recommend it to anyone concerned about the problems of large demonstrations and meetings involving individuals and groups with a range of attitudes to nonviolence.
There are day-by-day accounts of what…
Between 8-11 September the ExCeL Centre in London’s Docklands hosted the Defence Services Equipment International exhibition (DSEi), the world’s largest arms fair.
The day before the arms fair proper began, a connected “UK Defence Conference” was held at the QEII conference centre in Westminster. Before this started, Christian peace activist Chris Cole sprayed “Build Peace, not War Machines” across the doors and “arms trade = death” on the steps. Chris, director of the Fellowship…
The nine activists who decommissioned the EDO arms factory in Brighton in January, in protest against the supply of British arms to Israel and the assault on Gaza, are now facing the much vaguer charge of “conspiracy to cause criminal damage” as well as the charge of criminal damage itself, following a court hearing on 16 February.
The charge of burglary was dropped against all nine. Because of this change, the three activists who were arrested outside the factory, and who caused…
On 18 January 2009, as Israeli bombs – many of them containing British-made components – rained down on the people of Gaza, six people entered the EDO arms factory in Brighton, and proceeded to carry out a people’s decommissioning. Equipment used to make weapons’ components was smashed, and computers and filing cabinets were thrown out of windows. EDO claimed they had suffered £300,000 of damage – no mention, of course, of the damage being caused by their weapons in Gaza. All six were…
Twelve British companies produce components, many of them essential, for the F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopters that attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip last month, according to the Stop Arming Israel website.
Several of these UK-based companies produce critical parts used in the Apache aircraft. Among these are Agusta Westland in Yeovil and Redmayne in Hampshire (“Jesus nuts”), Senior Aerospace Baxter Woodhouse & Taylor (air duct systems) and Meggitt Avionics (air…
Two of the nine activists arrested for “decommissioning” hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of equipment at the EDO/MBM arms manufacturer in Brighton on 17 January were still being held by police at the time of going to press.
The remaining seven are out on bail, but on strict conditions: they are not allowed to return to their homes in Bristol and Brighton until their trial dates, they cannot communicate with one another and they cannot protest at EDO/MBM.
Though only…
In October, War on Want produced a major report on the involvement of major British banks in the arms trade.
It turns out that all the UK’s high street banks - apart from the Co-operative bank - fund the arms industry through direct investment in shares, participation in loan syndicates and the provision of banking services.
Barclays has the largest amount of shares in the global arms sector, with £7.3bn invested in total. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland…
I don’t think November is a favourite month for campaigning by any means. It is easy to feel discouraged when the days are wet, windy, cold and dark, whether you are marching in the rain, listening to speeches hoping your comrade’s umbrella doesn’t poke you in the eye, sitting down dangerously near a puddle or trying to climb a wet fence.
I recommend the musical protests favoured by East London Against The Arms Fair as more suited to the season. We are holding two this month. (…
On 16 October, five Swedish activists (pictured above) broke into factories owned by arms manufacturers BAE Systems and Saab and used household hammer to protest against the Swedish arms trade.
Cattis Laska, 24, and Pelle Strinlund, 37, hammered on components for the BAE Systems Howitzer 77 in a factory in Karlskoga in western Sweden.
Anna Andersson, 26, and Martin Smedjeback, 35, entered a Saab Bofors Dynamics plant in Eskilstuna, and disarmed 20 Carl Gustav grenade…
On 8 August, at Southwark Crown Court, I successfully challenged the use of section 44 of the Terrorism Act (2000), which enables a constable to “stop and search a person whom he reasonably suspects to be a terrorist”.
I was appealing against a conviction from Westminster magistrates’ court for “obstructing a police officer”. I had been observed on CCTV inserting a camera memory card into my mouth during a s44 search.
This happened outside Downing Street last September, during…
“Every death an opportunity” is a subversive slogan our local campaign has used, on many occasions, against Brighton’s resident bomb factory EDO MBM.
Reading Anna Stavrianakis’ The Façade of Arms Control I discovered that there is a government-approved version of this statement. It comes in the shape of the MoD form 680 – used to assist weapon manufacturers through the process of obtaining an export licence – which states that its aim is to give “an indication of what markets may…
The trial of the group known as the Raytheon Nine began in Belfast on 20 May . (Actually, only six of the defendants are in the dock. Three others are currently on remand in the Republic of Ireland on charges relating to dissident republican activity.) The trial began at the Crown Court on 21 May with about 50 people participating in a solidarity demonstration.
The basic facts about the incident at the Raytheon offices in Derry are clear. On 6 August 2006, a group of nine men, part…
19 May sees the opening of a long-delayed trial of nine anti-war protestors charged with criminal damage and affray at a Northern Ireland office of the arms manufacturers Raytheon.
It was on 9 August 2006, as the USA was rushing missiles to Israel to aid its assault on Lebanon, that nine members of the Derry Anti- War Coalition (DAWC) members occupied a Raytheon software development facility and “decommissioned” its computers. Ironically, the software facility had come to Derry/…
