In August 1998, Sachio Ko-Yin and Dan Sicken entered a nuclear missile silo in Weld County, Colorado, USA, and proceeded symbolically to transform death into life.
How shall I talk about doing support for a Plowshares prisoner? First, the excitement of the action and the post-action high (“They didn't shoot us! I talked to the FBI about Thoreau!”); the rush of speaking engagements and attendant press prior to the trial; trial preparation; then the night before the trial, that time-…
BAE Systems AGM, 9 May. Some shareholders are confused about the legality of their profits. Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) organised a protest outside, and difficult questions inside the AGM. The last question came from South African Andrew Feinstein who resigned as an ANC MP in 2001 when the Pretoria government refused to allow a full investigation into corruption allegations relating to a £5m arms deal involving BAE Systems.
Following their stunning defeat in the British high…
There has been a Saturday morning peace picket in Stroud's High Street since the build-up to the Iraq war. This is my pitch for selling PN and seasonal white poppies but I've only just discovered -- to my chagrin -- that the picket predates the arrival of our family in Stroud and has been going on since the war in Kosovo.
The picket is small but, as I've lately been made aware, admirably persistent. It has become part of the street furniture so to speak and this year our…
Born in 1957, American activist Keith McHenry is one of the founding members of Food Not Bombs, a revolutionary movement that works for nonviolent social change by serving surplus food to the public that would otherwise be thrown away or go to waste. Established in 1980 by eight anti-nuclear activists in Boston, Food Not Bombs has served food to rescue workers responding to the attacks on 9/11, to survivors of hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami and to the tent city protestors during the…
On 4 and 5 August a group of international peace gardeners visited AWE Aldermaston to plant vines and fig trees both inside and outside the Atomic Weapons Establishment. Nine were arrested and charged with criminal damage.
Taking inspiration from the biblical text Micah 4:3 - "and everyone shall live underneath their vine and fig tree and none shall make them afraid..." - the action kicked off a weekend of events held at Britain's nuclear weapons factory to mark the 60th anniversary…
All over Britain, people came together to commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki Days. There were vigils, ceremonies and tree plantings whilst other people chose to raise awareness by leafleting, fasting or floating peace lanterns. This is a round-up of a few of the events that took place:
In Southampton, over 100 people gathered at Bitterne Park United Reformed Church Hall for a meeting with the Mayor, Cllr Edwina Cooke, and Bruce Kent. After the meeting the audience and speakers viewed…
“If you truly want to determine Britain's state of affairs, you should look to its young people.” Gordon Brown has often expressed this idea. It is time he followed his own advice. The young people of Britain want nothing to do with his policies of war.
In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq thousands of school students across Britain walked out of their schools and colleges. The spirit, defiance and sheer vibrancy of this mass action helped energise the anti-war movement.
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A group of seven war tax resisters, 'the Peace Tax Seven' are about to commence legal action against the British government by seeking a High Court judicial review of the policy of compulsory military taxation. Some in the peace movement have argued that this approach is not only doomed to failure, but also that it could end up doing more harm than good. Eager to learn more, Peace News asked the two sides to put their case. This is what they said:
Simon Heywood: In our view…
Over the past month Libya has been added to the list of countries subjected to drone strikes by US and British forces, joining Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq. Unfortunately, the list of countries facing these kind of remote attacks is only likely to grow as US military procurement plans, released this month, show that the Pentagon is planning to double its arsenal of large military drones over the next decade.
In Pakistan, anger at the continuing CIA drone strikes continues to…
Five defendants arrested at the Devonport blockade in November 2010 went free after appearing before Plymouth magistrates on 9-10 June.
Three Scottish defendants, who had locked-on across the gate to the dock where Trident nuclear submarines are serviced, had been charged with “obstruction of a constable”. The prosecution tried to change this at the hearing to “obstruction of the highway”. The District Judge dismissed the cases because “obstruction of the highway” was a summary…
Faslane Peace Camp is now 29 years old. It is a humble collection of caravans and communal spaces by the side of the road near Faslane naval base where the British nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered submarines are stationed.
Many hundreds of people have lived at the camp over the years. They didn’t choose to live here for comfort or style, but because they wanted to be part of the constant vigil and direct action campaign against a morally-corrupt world with nuclear weapons.
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Between 1-8 June, 12 members of Orlando Food Not Bombs, in Florida US) were arrested for feeding too many homeless people from their stall. A city ordinance forbids feeding homeless people in city parks without a permit or feeding more than 25 at a time with a permit. (Groups are only allowed two permits per year.) The police said FnB had fed more people than the permit allowed. FnB didn’t have a permit because they refuse on principle to apply for one! The penalty for violating the…
PHOTO: Janet Fenton
The subs will be built with the more expensive PWR3 nuclear reactor rather than the less safe PWR2 one, but this will further increase the costs of the Trident replacement programme.
The aim is to base the new nuclear missile submarines at Faslane in Scotland until 2060. This is a decision that flies in the face of the will of the people of Scotland who have just elected a parliament with a clear majority of MSPs who are strongly opposed to nuclear weapons.
…On 29 March, five “Disarm Now Plowshares” peace activists received jail sentences at Tacoma federal courthouse, Washington state, USA. Anne Montgomery, Bill Bichsel, Lynne Greenwald, Steve Kelly and Susan Crane (aged from 60 to 83), were ordered to pay $5,300 each, as well as between six and 15 months in prison, plus a year’s supervised release. The five were arrested inside the US naval base Kitsap-Bangor in Washington state in November 2009. They had cut through fences around the Trident…
On 19 March, the US “Stop These Wars” coalition, led by Veterans for Peace, sponsored a rally and protest at the White House, Washington DC, with over 1,500 people calling for an end to US war-making in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya, and for the release of Wikileaks defendant Bradley Manning. 113 people, including many veterans, were arrested. On the same day, 11 military family members and veterans were arrested for civil trespass in Hollywood, California, where they staged a sit-in…
