Recent articles

Shoot activists better

16 Mar 2024

Feature by Zoe Broughton

A guide to filming protests on your smartphone – for maximum impact – by one of the most experienced activist filmmakers around.

If you film your campaign group in action, the footage can be used on social media or even broadcast news to get the message out to a wider audience.

By filming it yourself, you are being part of DIY (Do It Yourself) culture and not relying on the mainstream media to turn up.

Here are a few hints to get you going, using a smartphone.

Before you go out
Try and make sure your phone is fully charged.

Pack your charged battery pack and charging cable if you have one.

Make sure you have space on your phone to record onto.

'Love Gaza, love Rafah, love peace' – love, Rosy

22 Feb 2024

Blog by PN staff

In mid-February, longtime British peace activist Rosy Bremer spraypainted an anti-war message on the walls of Portsmouth naval base, which also houses an arm of the giant arms company BAE Systems.

As you can see in the video shot by Linda Spence, Rosy spraypainted: '♥ Gaza ♥ Rafah ♥ peace'.

Rosy told the Portsmouth News:

A futile war

01 Feb 2024

News by Milan Rai

US/UK airstrikes on Houthis could condemn Yemen to famine and endless war

The US and Britain are, at the time of writing, at war with the Ansar Allah movement that controls over two-thirds of the population of Yemen and a third of its territory. This war is not an act of ‘self-defence’, it is doomed to failure, it is wrecking the fragile and desperately-needed Yemeni peace process, and it is actually strengthening Ansar Allah, known as ‘the Houthis’ after their first leader.

Can XR’s surprise success in the Netherlands be repeated elsewhere?

01 Feb 2024

Feature by Douglas Rogers

From Waging Nonviolence: how European climate movements are copying a major Dutch civil disobedience victory

Success in climate activism can take a lot of forms, and relatively few of them are glamorous. The change we work for might be too abstract to measure, or our role in it might be unclear. Perhaps, in difficult conditions, success might mean no more than keeping your head above the water.

Still, there are times when success can actually be joyful, epic and infectious, as in the case of the recent blockades on the Dutch capital’s A12 highway.

I Neva Shot de Sheriff

01 Feb 2024

Feature by Benjamin Zephaniah

A poem by Benjamin Zephaniah

’Twaz broad daylight,
Kool breeze waz
Blowing
Going
East, north, south
West.
Me mind waz fine
Relatively speaking,
Me body waz
Present,
An Natty Dread me deputy waz
As always
Chilled.

It happened quick,
Professionally done
We knew exactly wot hit us.

De sheriff shot I an me
An den he shot me deputy.

Ukrainian war formula

01 Feb 2024

News by PN staff

Switzerland to host phony ‘Peace Formula’ conference this year

Ukraine continues to push its phony ‘10-Point Peace Plan’, which demands the prosecution and conviction of Russian leaders for war crimes, the seizure of Russian assets to compensate Ukraine for war damage and total Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, among other points, as the precondition for negotiations (PN 2668).

At the Davos summit for the rich and powerful in January, Ukraine persuaded Switzerland to host the next ‘Peace Formula’ conference later this year.

‘Israel, stop killing’ says World Court

01 Feb 2024

News by Milan Rai

World Court’s legally-binding order to Israel is a historic first, but still has flaws

Three Palestinian human rights groups issued a joint statement on 26 January welcoming the World Court’s decision to consider whether Israel’s war in Gaza is genocidal, and to order Israel to stop killing Palestinians in Gaza, among other measures.

Putin’s latest peace feelers

01 Feb 2024

Feature by Milan Rai

Russia 'ready to make a deal', reports New York Times

As we head towards the second anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the question of peace negotiations is becoming more pressing, especially with the possibility that Donald Trump may be re-elected president in November. Trump opposes US aid to Ukraine.

French voices for peace often suppressed

01 Feb 2024

News by Marc Morgan

Meetings banned, peace campaigner faces charges

One worrying trend even more prevalent in France than elsewhere is the stifling of open public discourse about the situation of the Palestinians, and restrictions placed on the freedom of expression of pro-Palestinian voices and movements.

Even before 7 October, public meetings on Israel-Palestine have been prohibited by the relevant authorities (local boroughs, or departmental Préfets) on dubious public-order grounds.

Sit-in planned for high court

01 Feb 2024

News by PN staff

Protest to challenge removal of legal defence used by Palestine campaigners

Campaigning group Defend Our Juries (DOJ) is planning a mass sit-down in the high court in London on 21 February to challenge the government’s attempt to remove the defence of ‘consent’, used by Palestine Action activists recently to win acquittals (see previous page).

This follows actions outside more than 50 crown courts across England and Wales on 4 December: 500 activists held signs defending the right of juries to reach their own verdicts, independently of the instructions they receive from judges.

France vs immigrants

01 Feb 2024

News by Marc Morgan

Marc Morgan examines Emmanuel Macron's capitulation to the far-right

Emmanuel Macron was elected president of France in 2017 promising to break the mould of French politics with its see-saw left-right swings. He claimed this was the best strategy for countering the rise of Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, the Rassemblement National (‘National Rally’), formerly known as the Front National (‘National Front’).

Climate direct action - 16 JSO acquittals

01 Feb 2024

News by PN staff

150,000 sign petition opposing deportation of German climate activist

There don’t seem to have been any Just Stop Oil (JSO), Extinction Rebellion or Insulate Britain arrests since PN last came out, in late November.

On 8 January, JSO began negotiations with the Metropolitan police over its ‘slow walking’ campaign of disrupting traffic in London.

JSO presented the Met with evidence that the government was guilty of the crime of ‘genocide by oblique intent’, by developing new oil and gas projects.

JSO offered to pause disruptive actions if the Met was to investigate this criminal behaviour by the government.

‘Workers for Palestine’ blockade UK arms factories

01 Feb 2024

News by PN staff

New solidarity group takes action in Bournemouth, Brighton, Blackburn and Glasgow

On 7 December, a new Palestine solidarity group, Workers for a Free Palestine, organised 1,000 trade unionists and other protesters to blockade four sites connected to the Israeli war machine: Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth, Dorset; the L3Harris factory in Brighton, East Sussex; BAE Systems’s Samlesbury Aerodrome just outside Blackburn in Lancashire; and the BAE Systems Govan site in Glasgow.

All four arms company sites are linked to the manufacture of the F-35 warplane currently being used in the Israeli war of destruction in Gaza.