On 9 June, direct action group Animal Rising published a damning investigation into the RSPCA Assured scheme, which is supposed to ensure that every Assured ‘hatchery, farm, haulier and abattoir’ has been confirmed to have met the RSPCA’s ‘higher farm animal welfare standards’.
Footage released by Animal Rising from 40 farms shows baby chickens dying in factory farms and pigs left dead for days in filthy sheds. More info: www.animalrising.org
In June, ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, published Surge: 2023 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending.
CND described the British figures as ‘particularly shocking’: ‘Over the past five years, Britain’s spending has increased by over 43%. In 2023 alone, Britain spent a staggering £6.5 billion on nuclear weapons, up 17.1% on the previous year.’
Globally, ICAN says that last year the nine nuclear-armed states increased their nuclear weapons spending by $10.8bn to total of $91.4bn. The full report: tinyurl.com/peacenews4265
On 1 July, the undercover policing inquiry heard an apology from the Met police to women who were deceived into ‘deceitful, abusive and manipulative’ relationships with undercover officers without knowing their true identity.
The women who were spied on said: ‘an apology is not enough’. Their campaign, Police Spies Out Of Lives, are asking for transparency: ‘The inquiry must reveal all of the officers’ cover names and what they went on to do after their roles in the undercover unit.’
Just before the general election, the home office plunged the undercover policing inquiry into turmoil by announcing a new timetable for the spycops inquiry.
After eight years, hearing only a fraction of the evidence, the home office was insisting that all remaining stages of the inquiry be completed, and a final report published, by the end of 2026.
The Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (COPS) says: ‘The accelerated timetable is putting the integrity of the Inquiry’s work at risk.’ Kate Wilson, a core participant in upcoming ‘tranches’, said: ‘The Inquiry is imposing impossible deadlines on everyone, despite missing its own deadlines for disclosure.... Many Core Participants have waited years for answers only to find robust investigation and fairness may be sacrificed to a new imperative of finishing quickly at all costs.’
She urged the new Labour home secretary to halt the home office ‘sabotage’.
tinyurl.com/COPScampaign
We reported last issue that Alberto Portugheis of Humanity United for Universal Demilitarisation (HUFUD) had been banned from posting on the Network for Peace email list for ‘constant trolling and false accusations’.
These included his claim that ‘CND and all other campaigns against nuclear weapons were actually increasing development and demand of the nuclear weapons industry’.
We’re publishing a response from Alberto Portugheis on the PN website in which he says he is ‘against the Peace and Human Rights industry, which feeds on wars and human rights abuses.’
If you were wondering how things went for Virginia Moffat and Chris Cole, raising funds to help pay their fines, costs and compensation after their Downing Street action in support of Rafah, supporters donated £765 towards the £1683.68 total for the married couple (see PN 2672).
There’s not been a fundraising appeal for the Solvay Three, who carried out a pro-Palestine rooftop occupation and were ordered to pay fines and compensation orders (to the fire service) of £550 each – with nothing going to Solvay itself, though (see PN 2672).
On 28 June, the Science Museum in London announced it had dropped one of its sponsors, Equinor, because the Norwegian oil and gas firm’s plans did not meet the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C.
Culture Unstained, which has campaigned against fossil fuel sponsorship of the Science Museum, pointed out that the Equinor announcement was buried at the bottom of a blog post released just days before the UK general election.
The museum is now facing calls to cut sponsorship ties to two other major fossil fuel polluters: BP and the Indian coal company Adani.
Culture Unstained: tinyurl.com/peacenews4264
The human rights situation in occupied Western Sahara is getting worse, the president of the collective of the Sahrawi human rights defenders (CODESA) told the Algerian Press Service on 19 June.
Ali Salem Tamek said this was partly due to Morocco’s ‘categorical refusal to allow international fact-finding teams to enter the territory, which provides it with cover to continue committing crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity away from the spotlight, and thus legitimizing its occupation of Western Sahara.’
Western Sahara has been illegally occupied since Morocco invaded in 1975.
Western Sahara Campaign: www.wsahara.org.uk
On 6 June, PN editor Milan Rai held a PN birthday consultation in Manchester Friends Meeting House, organised by reader Robert Wilson. Thank you, Robert! Thank you, Manchester!
This year, there was no national Armed Forces Day event, something welcomed by ForcesWatch and the Peace Pledge Union (PPU).
The two British peace groups pointed out that the number of local events have also dropped. In 2019, there were 316 events listed on the official Armed Forces Day website, compared to only 189 this year.
Many local councils have admitted, in response to Freedom of Information requests by ForcesWatch and the PPU, that they have no specific policies on children handling weapons in public spaces or the armed forces targeting children in their recruitment activities.
On 8 July, Olga Karach was one of five Belorussian oppositionists sentenced (in their absence) to 12 years in prison. The charges included ‘conspiracy to seize power by unconstitutional means’, ‘promotion of extremist activity’ and ‘discrediting the Republic of Belarus’.
Olga is known to PN readers for her human rights and anti-conscription work with the international centre for civil initiatives, Nash Dom (‘Our House’). She lives in exile in Lithuania, which has denied her application for asylum.
Olga was also fined €170,000 for her ‘crimes’. The fines for Vadzim Dzmitrenak, Anatoly Kotau, Veranika Tsepkala and Yauhen Vilsky were mostly lower.
At the beginning of June, two survivors of the atomic bombings (hibakusha) spoke at a gathering in Friends House, Central London.
Toshiko Tanaka, a survivor of Hiroshima, told the gathering: ‘I would like to tell the people they call “world leaders”, who are interested in their own national interests… that in fact we live on something akin to a spaceship; a ship where we can spend our time fighting over borders, over resources, and if we do so then the spaceship and the life on it will suffer.’
Tadayoshi Ogawa, a survivor of Nagasaki, is a photographer who runs a project called ‘Lest We Forget’. People are invited to take a photo every year (at 11.02am on 9 August) of anything they hope will be preserved for future generations.
The event was organised by Quakers in Britain, CND and the Japan-based NGO Peace Boat, which organises global voyages to promote peace, human rights and sustainability. Tanaka and Ogawa came to London on board the Peace Boat.
New research by Rethinking Security and Coventry University, letting people define ‘security’ for themselves, has led to a new Rethinking Security report published in June: How do the British People Understand their Security? Responses from a new approach to public opinion.
Download the report here: www.tinyurl.com/peacenews4259
In the last few months, the investment group Baillie Gifford has ended its sponsorship of all British literary festivals: the Borders, Cambridge, Cheltenham, Henley, Stratford, Wimbledon and Wigtown – and Hay, the first to break ties after protests organised by Fossil Free Books.
Fossil Free Books wanted Baillie Gifford ‘to divest from the fossil fuel industry and from companies that profit from Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide.’
Meanwhile, at the end of June, in the US, the South by Southwest film festival said that the US army and ‘companies who engage in weapons manufacturing’ would not be sponsoring its 2025 festival. Many artists had withdrawn from the 2024 event in support of Palestine.
As of 11 July, the wonderful Nuclear Resister had recorded more than 9,000 arrests in the US and Canada on over 350 occasions across more than 125 cities and towns in 36 states and five provinces – all demanding a ceasefire in Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Over 3,400 of these arrests have taken place on at least 70 university campuses.
Editors Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa says this ‘marks the largest surge of anti-war arrests’ since the run-up to, and first weeks of, the 2003 Iraq War, when the Nuclear Resister reported over 7,500 anti-war arrests in the US alone.
More info: www.nukeresister.org
On 4 June, two women peace activists went to prison in western Germany rather than pay fines for protesting at Germany’s Büchel air force base, which houses US nuclear weapons.
Susan Crane, 79, (of the Redwood City Catholic Worker House in California, USA) is serving 229 days, maybe getting out at the end of September. Susan van der Hijden, 54, (of the Catholic Worker in Amsterdam in the Netherlands) has a 115-day sentence, maybe getting out at the end of July.
Please send cards or letters to Susan Crane or Susan van der Hijden at: Justizvollzugsanstalt Rohrbach, Peter-Caesar-Allee 1, 55597 Wöllstein, Germany.
German activist Gerd Büntzly was due to go to prison on 15 June, but this has been delayed.
More info: www.nukeresister.org
