David Polden
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…
On 13 January, Friends of the Earth (FoE) and South Lakes Action on Climate Change (SLACC) filed applications in the high court to take legal action against the government over the construction of a new coalmine in Cumbria, in North-West England. The two organisations have co-operated in designing their legal challenges to dovetail rather than overlap.
The reason for their request for a judicial review is the decision of Levelling Up secretary, Michael Gove, to grant planning…
Palestine Action (PA) has kept up a hectic pace recently in terms of court dates, and has also carried on its campaign of property damage against British arms firms supplying the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).
PA, founded in July 2020, has branched out from its focus on Elbit UK, the British subsidiary of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, which supplies military drones to the IDF for use against Palestinians.
For example, on 19 January campaigners in Scotland…
On 16 December, three more people were jailed in connection with the ‘Kill the Bill’ clashes in Bristol in early 2021, bringing the total in prison to 26.
Earlier, on 18 November, it was reported that Avon & Somerset police had paid undisclosed damages to five people who say they were assaulted by the police during the ‘Kill the Bill’ demonstration in Bristol on 23 March 2021.
The incidents took place on College Green after a day of peaceful protest against the Police,…
Two days before this year’s National Alternative Remembrance ceremony on 13 November, my affinity group, the Mad Hatters, hung placards on the fence by each of the entrances to Tavistock Square in Central London (where the ceremony is held) giving details of the event and inviting people to join it. We also hung wreaths with white poppies by each entrance.
On the day, we gave out leaflets at the entrances inviting people to join the ceremony.
(The Mad Hatters did the same…
12 November was a Global Day of Action called by Egyptian climate justice groups to mark the COP27 negotiations. There were dozens of demonstrations in Wales, Scotland and England.
In London, the Climate Justice Coalition (CJC) had the bright idea of organising the mass painting (in Embankment Gardens) of large colourful banners to be carried on the local march.
On 12 November, the London march set off from behind the Shell building on the South Bank, Shell and other oil…
On 3 December, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) organised a day of action in solidarity with the people in Yemen and against the companies fuelling the war there, in the run-up to their legal challenge to British arms sales to Saudi Arabia, due to be heard in the High Court on 31 January.
Some events took place before the official day of action. On 2 December, there was a demo outside BAE Systems in Holyhead, on Anglesey, and, in Lancaster, Demilitarise Lancaster, Solidarity…
Palestine Action (PA) has claimed more successes (including eight acquittals) in its direct action campaign against the British subsidiary of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, which supplies military drones to the Israeli Defence Force for use against Palestinians.
Defence procurement minister Alex Chalk confirmed on 24 November that Elbit Systems UK had been removed from a £160mn contract to deliver crew training for the new Dreadnought-class submarine that is…
Thousands of people came to London from across the UK and around the world on 8 October to create a human chain around the Houses of Parliament, calling for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be freed.
The demonstration was called by Don’t Extradite Assange (DEA), which campaigns for freedom for Julian Assange, currently in Belmarsh Prison awaiting extradition to the US to face conspiracy charges for publishing secret documents revealing US war crimes in Afganistan and Iraq.
…
On 22 September, five more countries signed the UN’s Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and two more ratified it, making 91 signatories and 68 ratifiers in total.
Barbados, Burkina Faso, Equatorial Guinea, Haiti and Sierra Leone were the signers, and the Dominican Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo the latest ratifiers.
They were called the ‘Magnificent Seven’ by the chair of Britain’s Nuclear Free Local Authorities, David Blackburn of Leeds city…
In early September, the high court in London carried out a judicial review of the British government’s plan to deport refugees to Rwanda.
On the first day, Raza Hussain KC told the court: ‘Rwanda is a one-party state that does not tolerate political opposition. It is a regime that repeatedly imprisons, tortures and murders those it thinks its political opponents. Those who protest or dissent from government directives, including refugees, are faced with police violence.’
The…
On 14 September, dozens of Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists broke an injunction by blockading the Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire. 51 of them were held in prison for at least a week, because they’d been banned from the terminal after a previous action.
Two campaigners, Rajan Naidu, a civil rights advocate, and Dr Sarah Benn, a GP, were given 34-day prison sentences, both for a third breach of the injunction.
Birmingham magistrates gave 28 other activists sentences of up to…
During the outpourings of grief for the late queen, Elizabeth II, who died on 8 September, a few brave souls attempted to show dissent.
Symon Hill was walking home from church in Oxford on 11 September when he passed a proclamation ceremony for the new king, Charles III. He heard a speaker tell the crowd to accept Charles as their ‘only lawful and rightful liege lord’.
In response, Symon shouted: ‘Who elected him?’. The crowd cried: ‘Shut up!’ Symon was arrested and handcuffed…
