PN staff
On 9 January, a three-day trial in Brighton resulted in acquittals for 10 people arrested for blockading the drilling site near Balcombe on 26 July. This was the first of over 20 trials arising out of protests against energy giant Cuadrilla’s attempts to drill for oil and gas near the West Sussex village.
All 10 were acquitted of ‘obstruction of the highway’. Defence lawyers argued that as the B2036 London Road at Balcombe was closed to…
Defendant Linda LeTendre wrote afterwards of her shock: ‘I sat at the defense table with my mouth hanging open while the courtroom erupted in cheers and applause. I remember thinking, “I must look a fool with my chin hanging lower than my navel.” ’
“We will not be complicit with our government’s war crimes”
It was the first acquittal of anti-drones…
Howard worked for Peace News during the 1970s and 80s and remained a constant supporter, board member, and friend. In 2012, Peace News reprinted Howard's seminal text, Making Nonviolent Revolution.
He was also Coordinator for War Resisters International for many years and more lately WRI Chair, and committed to many other peace initiatives. Howard lived in Spain with his partner, Yolanda Juarros Barcenilla, and…
A US state has begun examining the conversion of military industry to socially-useful production. On 14 May, the Connecticut legislature created a ‘futures commission’ which will draw up a strategy for ‘the diversification or conversion of defense-related industries with an emphasis on encouraging environmentally-sustainable and civilian product manufacturing’.
This follows the success of a ballot in November, in New Haven, Connecticut, on the question: ‘Shall…
All gates into the base were blockaded for three hours on a Monday morning, from 7am to 10am. Those arrested ranged in age from 19 to 83 and came from across Scotland, Wales and England.
Students, pensioners, environmentalists and activists from a dozen campaign groups and political parties lay down in the entrance to the base and locked themselves together with metal and plastic tubes, chains and ‘thumb-cuffs’ (handcuffs for thumbs). They demanded the UK disarm the Trident weapons…
Day of action outside Houses of Parliament Photo: Edurne Aginaga
The campaigners dramatised the idea of wasting money on the military while making cuts to welfare in a ‘Play the Budget Right’ game show: a student needing tuition fees instead received military hardware; and an injured man received an aircraft carrier instead of medical treatment.
The protest was followed by a lively meeting inside parliament, where Green MP Caroline Lucas articulated the consensus that ‘the…
Instead of holding a ‘death party’ (there were many around the country, including one in Trafalgar Square initiated by Class War, and several in former coal-mining villages), Alex Higgins and Tasha Harrison focused attention on those who lost out during the Thatcher era and invited people to donate to important causes. These included: Stonewall (the lesbian, gay and bisexual charity), Shelter (the housing and homelessness charity), the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation and the Child…
On 10 April, eight activists from Oxford CND, Reading, Croughton and Hampshire closed Tadley gate at Aldermaston AWE (atomic weapons establishment) as part of a year-long action known as ActionAWE (‘Action Atomic Weapons Eradication to stop Trident replacement’).
The team, dressed in white suits held a 40-minute die-in in front of a large banner (in front of the gate) during the evening end of work shift.
There were no arrests. Police re-directed traffic…
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.
Jellies opposite Downing St photo: JNV
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…
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.…
