David Polden
On 25 September, over 200 campaigners took arrestable action by holding up signs aimed at jurors outside criminal courts in Bristol, London, Manchester and elsewhere in the UK, as part of the growing public campaign, ‘Defend Our Juries’.
They were showing solidarity with Insulate Britain activist Trudi Warner, 68, who is being prosecuted for holding up a placard outside Inner London crown court on 27 March. It said: ‘Jurors you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to…
Nonviolent direct action by climate activists has almost ground to a halt recently, in the face of large numbers of such activists being put on trial and being given heavy sentences.
Insulate Britain ended its campaign of road obstructions in 2022.
Just Stop Oil’s only actions since June have involved slow marches in Exeter and Leeds, holding up traffic in its campaign to get the UK to stop giving licences for new oil and gas fields.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) suspended…
The direct action group Palestine Action (PA) has won its first acquittals. On 30 August, a judge at Walsall magistrates court found Iola Davies, 73, and Jasmine Murphy, 23, not guilty of highway obstruction despite the fact that they had locked-on to vehicles blocking entrances to the UAV Engines factory in Shenstone.
PA has a long-running campaign of disruption against British weapons factories owned by the Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems. UAV Engines, which is owned by Elbit…
Nine peace activists were arrested on ‘No Faith in War Day’, on 7 September, in front of the the ExCeL Centre in East London, where preparations were being made for the Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms exhibition and conference, Europe’s biggest arms fair.
Earlier, several hundred people had attended a Quaker meeting for worship, followed by an Anglican service and, later, a Pax Christi liturgy of resistance, at one of the gates to the ExCeL Centre. People…
The direct action group Palestine Action (PA) has seven prisoners to support (there was a day of action for them on 22 July) and at least eight trials going on, but PA is still keeping up its campaign of disruption against British weapons factories owned by the Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems.
PA’s ‘siege’ of the UAV Tactical Systems factory in Leicester which began on 1 May was still continuing at the time of writing. UAV is owned by Elbit.
On 9 July, in a new tactic, PA…
On 3 July, the government’s anti-boycott bill began its journey through parliament with a vote (286 to 70). The Labour party abstained, despite damning legal advice it had commissioned from barrister Richard Hermer KC.
Promised in the 2019 Tory manifesto, the bill says that public authorities, including local councils, universities and cultural institutions, cannot allow their financial or purchasing decisions to be influenced by their disapproval of the actions of a foreign state –…
Undercover police operations to infiltrate British protest groups in the ’70s and ’80s were ‘unjustified’ and the operations should have been rapidly closed down. That was one conclusion of the first report of the Undercover Policing inquiry, covering the years 1968 – 1982, published on 29 June.
The inquiry also found that, between 1968 – 1982, six undercover officers had sexual relationships with at least 14 women.
The women who were spied on are now demanding that the…
Three activists who lay on the road outside Brook House immigration centre in November 2021, preventing people being put on a deportation flight, were found not guilty of causing a public nuisance by a jury at Lewes crown court on 13 June.
Griff Ferris, Callum Lynch and Rivka Micklethwaite had argued that they were concerned about the possible fates of the detainees if forced to fly back to Jamaica.
On 18 July, both anti-racist and anti-migrant protests met the Bibby…
The longest sentences yet imposed on climate activists were handed down on 21 April, at Southend crown court, when a jury found two Just Stop Oil activists guilty of causing a public nuisance. Judge Shane Collery KC sentenced Morgan Trowland, 40, to three years in prison and Marcus Decker, 36, to two years seven months, to ‘deter’ copycat actions.
The two were arrested last October after they had climbed 200 feet up onto the QEII Bridge over the Dartford Crossing in East London,…
A so-called ‘Illegal Migration Bill’ was being pushed through its last stages in the House of Lords as PN went to press.
This law would prevent people who had travelled in small boats across the Channel to arrive in the UK from being considered for asylum. They would be detained and removed ‘as soon as reasonably practical’ to Rwanda or to another ‘safe third country’. There are also plans to ban those removed from returning to the UK.
The United Nations high…
There have been dozens of arrests of Palestine Action (PA) activists since our last report.
At least 41 people have been arrested as part of the group’s main action in May, a mass ‘siege’ of UAV Tactical Systems in Leicester. The company is owned by the Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems. The siege started on 1 May and was continuing as PN went to press.
In another case, four PA activists are waiting to be sentenced after a seven-week trial at Wolverhampton crown court which…
Three days ahead of the coronation of Charles III, the new Public Order Bill, with many restrictions on the right to protest, became law. The anti-monarchist campaign, Republic, and other groups, including Extinction Rebellion, were sent a letter by the home office warning that these new powers had been brought forward to prevent ‘disruption at major sporting and cultural events’.
Describing the letter as intimidatory, Republic announced that it would not be deterred from protesting…
To mark the 20th anniversary of the huge 15 February march against the Iraq war, sculptor Amanda Ward and actors Mark Rylance and Michael Culver (Amanda’s husband), have launched a campaign to raise £50,000 to install a 5½-foot statue of Christian peace activist Brian Haw opposite the Imperial War Museum in South London.
The statue is a ‘maquette’ or small-scale model. It was made in 2012 when Amanda was campaigning for a nine-foot bronze statue of Brian to be put up in Parliament…
While Extinction Rebellion is temporarily quitting disruptive action to concentrate on mobilising mass demonstrations, Just Stop Oil (JSO) and Insulate Britain (IB) have said they will continue their disruptive action campaigns.
However, they also seem to have largely suspended their actions while engaged in fighting the many court cases arising from previous actions. However JSO has still been organising ‘slow marches’ to hold up traffic in many towns and cities.
Palestine…
On 14 January, Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers attacked Palestinians protesting against the stealing of Palestinian land in Masafer Yatta by a settler. Masafer Yatta is a community of 12 Palestinian villages to the south of Hebron in the Occupied West Bank.
Witnesses said the soldiers fired tear gas at them and at their homes, suffocating dozens of people, according to the Palestinian WAFA news agency. The soldiers then set up checkpoints on the roads to prevent supporters and…
