PN Staff

In April, Britain’s Law Society intervened in the case of Mandira Sharma, a Nepalese human rights lawyer facing persecution as an ‘anti-Maoist dollar mongerer’. Sharma, founder and chair of the human rights group Advocacy Forum, is one of a number of human rights defenders in Nepal who have faced threats because of their campaigns against immunity for politicians, paramilitaries and other individuals suspected of war crimes during the Nepali civil war (1996-2006).…

PN carried a photograph of Ernest Rodker, pensioner and G20 protester, flat on his back in the road. (PN 2509)

Ernest had just been knocked to the ground for a second time by police violently clearing demonstrators from Bishopsgate, who were supporting the Climate Camp close by.

Earlier in the day, newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson had died after being pushed to the ground by a policeman (PN 2509, 2550).

The independent police complaints commission (IPCC) reported receiving…

The tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq on 19 March was marked by peace group Justice Not Vengeance with a 32-pint vegan jelly (topped by a more modest dessert), as a reminder of ‘Wobbly Tuesday’, when the ministry of defence scrambled to draw up contingency plans for not invading Iraq.

After a huge backlash, including 64,000 people signing a critical petition, EDF Energy, the transnational power company, announced on 13 March that it would stop pursuing 21 climate activists for £5m. EDF had claimed that it lost this amount as a result of No Dash for Gas’s week-long occupation of two chimneys at the West Burton gas-fired power station last October (see PN 2552-53 and 2555).

No Dash for Gas activist Danielle Paffard said: ‘A domineering company…

London’s Freedom Bookshop was ‘seriously damaged’ by the fire (along with the building’s wiring), despite metal shutters that were fitted after attacks by fascists in 1993.

A wide range of organisations and individuals have offered support for (and donated books to) the anarchist bookshop, which was not insured.

Anarchist workers’ co-op Sabcat have produced a special 100% organic cotton Freedom Benefit T-shirt, featuring the 1970s masthead from Freedom,…

Thanks to your generosity we've already reached our original goal of raising £1,250 towards the costs of publishing Ian Sinclair's new book "The march that shook Blair: An oral history of 15 February 2003" (see below). However, further backing is still very valuable, as this will enable us to do additional promotional work for the book; and pay for some of the unpaid work that has already gone into the production (eg.…

The Israeli-initiated conflict over Gaza in mid-November, which left 105 Palestinian civilians and four Israeli civilians dead, began with the assassination of a hard-line Hamas military leader who was contemplating a long truce with Israel, according to a leading Israeli peace activist.

‘The assassination of Jaabari was a pre-emptive strike against the possibility of a long-term…

On 19 November, following the Trident Ploughshares (TP) annual meeting in London, 15 TP members headed to the UK headquarters of arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin:  Cunard House, 15 Lower Regent St. Two people climbed up beside the doors, others leafleted and held banners across the entrance: ‘Lockheed Martin Maker of Weapons of Mass Murder’ and ‘Use Your Skills For Peace’.

Lockheed Martin has a £3.5bn contract from the British government to design and build a new generation of…

As PN headed to the printers, Brian Terrell was heading to prison for a drone protest at Whiteman air force base on 15 April with Ron Faust and Mark Kenney. The three were arrested at the base while trying to deliver an indictment to the base commander, brigadier general Scott A Vander Hamm, charging everyone involved in drone operations with extrajudicial killings, wars of aggression and other crimes.

Mark Kenney served a four-month sentence ending on 11 November, and Ron Faust was…

Just 11 of the 182 cyclists arrested in London in July for taking part in a Critical Mass bike ride are facing trial (see PN 2549). The 11 are being tried in February under the Public Order Act (1986).

Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails continue hunger strikes against their indefinite detention without trial and against their conditions of imprisonment (see PN 2546).

On 21 November, Samer Issawi, on intermittent hunger strike for 118 days, began refusing water as well as food. His condition was unknown as PN went to press.

On 26 November, it was reported that Ayman Sharawna had declared…

The Indonesian people pay £50m a year on £300m of debts contracted in past decades to pay for military imports from the UK, according to information released by the British government on 5 November, after a long campaign by the Jubilee Debt Campaign. For more on ‘export credit guarantee’ debts:
www.tinyurl.com/peacenews780

In early November, British army surgeons received training in Denmark, by operating on 18 pigs that had been shot by snipers in such a way as to injure their organs but not kill them.

After the surgery, the animals were put down.

Animal rights group PETA pointed out that this exercise is banned if performed in the UK under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, and is also banned in 22 other NATO countries.

Six years of unsatisfactory ‘peace process’ have not delivered a new democratic constitution for Nepal, or a human rights accounting for crimes committed during ten years of brutal civil war.

The country is without a parliament as the supreme court ruled in May that the constituent assembly/parliament elected in 2008 could not extend its term any further. Elections scheduled for the end of November have been deferred until April. As PN went to press, the president was setting a tight…

In early November, the Moroccan government deported 25 European solidarity activists (21 Spaniards and four Norwegians) from Laayoune in Western Sahara, which has been illegally occupied by Morocco since 1975.

The solidarity visit was timed to mark the second anniversary of a Moroccan assault on Gadaym Izik, a massive Sahrawi tent city that sprang up as a protest against the occupation and the conditions of life it has created (PN 2528-2529). Gadaym Izik, in November 2010, was later…