PN staff
A number of activists refused to fill in the 2011 national census because of their objection to the involvement of military firm Lockheed Martin in processing the data.
Census resister Judith Sambrook, 47, pleaded not guilty at Wrexham magistrates court on 11 November; her case was adjourned to Mold magistrates court on 8 December.
On 8 December, Sarah Ledsom, 56, is due to appear at Liverpool magistrates court for failing to complete the 2011 census form.
Former Oxford…
As PN went to press, Occupy London were welcoming representatives from Occupy camps from across the country to their new site, "The Bank of Ideas", an office building in the City of London owned by Swiss bankers UBS.
On 20 November, representatives came to The Bank of Ideas from Occupy camps in Edinburgh, Newcastle upon Tyne, Liverpool, Norwich, Cardiff, Bristol, Bath, Brighton, Plymouth and the Isle of Wight, as well as from Ireland.
As of 21 November, as far as we could tell…
The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA) has reclaimed the art of Rebel Clowning: its combatants don't pretend to be clowns, they are clowns, real trained clowns. Clowns that have run away from the anaemic safety of the circus and escaped the banality of kids' parties.
CIRCA aims to make clowning dangerous again, to bring it back to the street, restore its disobedience and give it back the social function it once had: its ability to disrupt, critique and heal society.
…The Prison Activist Resource Centre is an online prisoner support site. While predominantly US- oriented the site is available in English and Spanish, and does offer information about internationally- relevant resources.
These are divided into categories such as “prisoner support”, “activist groups” and “prison law” (US). One of the great things about this site is that it has a rather fantastic and massive bibliography, divided into sections such as “women”, “history”, “black activism”, “…
David Anderson, Sensible Justice: Alternatives to Prisons (New Press, 1998. ISBN 1565843894, 182pp). Sensible Justice explores creative solutions for the US prisons “problem”. It also makes an important contribution developing an effective national crime strategy. Mary Bosworth, Engendering resistance: Agency and Power in Women's power (Ashgate Publishing, 1999. ISBN 1840147393) . This book contributes a different perspective to women's studies, criminology and prison studies…
Soraya began her human rights work when she became a lawyer in 1986 -- a period which she describes as “a very hard time in Colombian history; it was a time when political assassinations and massacres of a great part of the people's social movement of Colombia were on the rise”.
The collective has been protected by Peace Brigades International (PBI) volunteers, as Soraya and her colleagues suffer threats and intimidation on a daily basis from Colombia's security and paramilitary…
Tell us a bit about your involvement with the antinuclear movement.
I first took part in anti-nuclear actions in the early 1980s. I went on the big anti-cruise demonstrations and went to Greenham a couple of times, for events like “Embrace the Base”. I didn't do anything much on the issue after that until the late 1990s, when I started to get alarmed about war and US foreign policy, particularly in relation to nuclear weapons. The two things that worried me were the expansion of NATO…
ZZZ: We try to walk the walk, whether we are challenging the Israeli occupation or resolving conflicts locally.
We're living in a pressure cooker. When you are confined to your home or your bantustan, when the economic situation is deteriorating, unemployment is skyrocketing, and trauma among children is increasing, abnormal conditions create abnormal relationships among people. They create displaced anger against each other.
Yesterday we were mediating conflicts between…
On 19 May, the public sector union Unison sponsored a day conference in London taking forward the campaign against Britain's Trident nuclear arsenal.
PN talked to Bruce Kent the next day, and this is what he told us: “It was a very positive meeting. It lasted from 10am to 5pm, and people really stayed.
“There were over 70 people at it, and they represented quite a wide spectrum of churches, trade unions, and peace activists.
“There was no feeling that the vote…
PN: OK, so tell us a bit about your background -- how and why you got into the military and about your personal journey.
AW: Well I joined the military right after I graduated from college, mainly because I wanted
How and when did the INDG come into being?
The International Network on Disarmament and Globalisation formed at the Hague Appeal for Peace conference in May 1999. It arose out of a panel discussion on the Militarisation of the Global Economy, which was standing-room only.
Following the forum, a small meeting was held to continue the discussion and better educate the peace movement about the effects of globalisation on our peace work. (My speech at that Hague…
PN: Tell us a bit about yourself: your background and how you got interested in climate change issues?
ML: I've been fascinated by the natural world since I can remember - especially untouched places like mountains. I think the realisation of so much wild beauty being destroyed was my first impetus.
When I was at university I edited an environment page in the student newspaper, and I remember being furious about the M3 [motorway] cutting at Twyford Down at the time -…
Over the summer there was a minor media storm as, in the run up to 7/7, journalists and politicians heard about Fun Da Mental's new album All is War. It's a provocative and challenging album (see review opposite) and the track that caught the media's attention is called Cookbook DIY. We caught up with main man Aki Nawaz and, at his request, tried to ask him some “hard” questions!
PN: The mainstream media have given you a seriously hard time over the album…
Careful investigation by environmental activists has uncovered the identities of three long-term police infiltrators, one of whom advocated violence. Police constable (PC) Mark Kennedy, known in Nottingham activist circles as “Mark Stone” was publicly exposed on the Indymedia activists’ news website in late October, a fact recorded in PN 2528. (The first report in a British print publication.) Kennedy had been undercover in the environmentalist movement from 2004. In late 2009 he resigned…
