Cymdeithas yr Iaith – the organisation that campaigns for the Welsh language – has seen a rise this year in the number of complaints by individuals who have been banned from speaking Welsh.
One workplace told employees not to speak Welsh to each other if there were non-Welsh speakers also working.
In a well-known fast food chain, a staff member was banned from speaking Welsh and told she had to take all orders in English, including from customers who spoke Welsh!
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News
Aberystwyth stands with Catalonia. Photo: Marian Delyth
On 17 October, Aberystwyth locals gathered in solidarity with the Catalan people after the Spanish supreme court sentenced nine political prisoners to nine to 13 years in prison for their involvement in the 2017 Catalan independence referendum.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had called on Spain to release the prisoners, conduct an independent investigation to identify public officials responsible…
At a meeting on 26 October, Bexhill and Hastings United Nations Association (UNA) explored the UN’s meaning of peace by working through the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations.
Bruce Kent (Movement for the Abolition of War) discussed how ‘We the peoples’ can actually ‘save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.
Chris Coverdale (Make War History) suggested ways to end Britain’s perpetual involvement in war, including persuading taxpayers to obey the…
1 December is Prisoners for Peace Day, when activists are encouraged to write to people imprisoned around the world for refusing to fight or for campaigning against war.
This year, we have highlighted the imprisonment of US military whistleblower Chelsea Manning and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
At risk
As we went to press, there were reports that Julian Assange’s health was deteriorating rapidly.
More than 60 doctors wrote an open letter expressing their fear…
1 October 2019
Gwynedd council in North Wales invests over £100 million in war, I discovered through a Freedom of Information request (FoIR). Gwynedd holds shares in Chemring, producer of gas canisters used against protesters in both Hong Kong and Tahrir Square; Lockheed Martin, whose bombs killed 40 children in a bus in Yemen; Safran who make navigation and rocket systems for nuclear missiles; and 83 other ‘defence’ companies.
Through its local government pension scheme (LGPS), Gwynedd also…
1 October 2019
In August, demonstrators in town crier costumes walked around Whitehall in central London, shouting the good news about the UN's Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The Trident Ploughshares activists also held an oration and die-in on the steps of the British Museum to protest at the holding of an MoD-sponsored exhibition to mark the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the UK’s nuclear-armed submarines.
When the group held the same demonstration in the…
Meditative climate action, Barclays bank, Aberystwyth, 6 July. Photo: Lotte Reimer
Climate change actions have been many and varied in the past few months.
On 6 July, members of West Wales Triratna Buddhist Group took ‘meditative action’ outside Barclays bank in Aberystwyth. Wearing blindfolds and carrying placards saying ‘Barclays – blind to the climate crisis’, the group cut a powerful image of compassion and determination during their two-and-a-half-hour meditation.
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1 October 2019
Not-for-profit, community-owned enterprise Egni Co-op has embarked on a major scheme in Wales to install over 5,000kW of rooftop solar panels on over 250 sites, including golf, football and rugby clubs, businesses, community centres, universities, a brewery, leisure centres and schools.
Launching the community share offer in June, director Rosie Gillam said: ‘This is an opportunity for Wales to take the lead in tackling climate change, and we want as many people as possible to get…
Lola Olufemi, one of many speakers of colour at the Conference at the Gates, gives a talk on ‘Dismantling the Institution’ on 5 September. Photo: CAAT
About 50 protesters were arrested for obstruction of the highway outside the ExCeL centre in East London on 'No Faith in War Day’, 3 September. They were among hundreds who had blockaded – for nine hours – an access road being used to ferry in exhibits for the DSEI (Defence & Security Equipment International) arms fair.
The…
Kings Bay Ploughshares 7 (left–right): Clare Grady, Patrick O’Neill, Liz McAlister, Steve Kelly SJ, Martha Hennessy, Mark Colville and Carmen Trotta.
Photo: Kings Bay Ploughshares
Photo: Kings Bay Ploughshares
Seven US Catholic peace activists are facing up to 25 years in prison each, after breaking into a Trident submarine base at Kings Bay in Georgia, on the east coast of the USA. On 4 April 2018, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, the seven entered…
1 August 2019
On 28 June, more than 40 people from the Stop Ramstein Campaign blockaded all three gates to USAF Büchel in western Germany, where the US air force stores an estimated 20 US nuclear bombs, defying a parliamentary ban. (USAF Ramstein, also in western Germany, is implicated in US drone warfare.)
The campaigners totally blocked the base for about two hours, preventing personnel from leaving.
Police carried the blockaders off the road and conducted ID checks before releasing them…
1 August 2019
Over the weekend of the 7–9 June, the streets of Aberystwyth reverberated with the sound of singing in at least three languages – Welsh, Norwegian and English – as Aberystwyth’s Côr Gobaith hosted Norwegian socialist choir SJOKK, Pales Peace Choir from Powys, and Cardiff’s renowned Côr Cochion. SJOKK (‘shock’) was founded in 1981 to ‘spread socialist and humanistic ideas and values through singing and music’.
The event was a result of a chance meeting at the 2018 Street Choirs…
Brian Quail and Willemien Hoggendoorn, Faslane, 7 July. Photo: Trident Ploughshares
A Faslane peace camper was in prison as PN went to press, following a day of action at the Faslane nuclear submarine base in Scotland.
Faslane, 20 miles west of Glasgow, is the home of the UK's Trident nuclear missile submarine fleet.
On 7 July, a total of five peace activists were arrested after 'reclaiming' the base on the second anniversary of the UN adopting the Treaty on…
Blue plaque at BAE Systems office, London.Photo: London Caat
With DSEI looming large on the horizon, London Campaign Against Arms Trade took an interested group of people around some of the weapons producers that are likely to exhibit at the East London arms fair in September.
On 6 July, visits were paid to the London offices of BAE Systems, Boeing, G4S, Lockheed Martin and Rolls Royce, as well as Buckingham Palace (due to the support the royals have provided in securing arms deals…
More than 6,000 activists from the Ende Gelände anti-coal alliance blocked parts of a giant opencast coalmine in the Rhineland, Germany, over 21–23 June. Hundreds cut off Germany’s largest coal-fired power station from its coal supply by occupying train tracks for over 24 hours. Thousands also entered the Garzweiler mine and stopped huge coal excavators. Police detained some activists for more than 13 hours, denying them food and water for hours. Photo: Jens Volle (CC BY 2.0)
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1 August 2019
On 22 June, anti-arms trade die-ins and other nonviolent actions at Le Bourget airport resulted in 50 arrests. The activists were held for about four hours, then released after their identities had been checked and recorded (as were those of other demonstrators taking part in the actions).
The Paris Air Show serves as a showcase for arms dealers from around the world.
French arms dealers exhibiting at the show are responsible for many Yemeni civilian deaths: Nexter (Leclerc…
1 August 2019
On 12 July, 29 campaigners from climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) had their first court hearings at City of London magistrates' court. They were facing public order charges arising from XR's 11 days of mass action in London in April.
Two courtrooms have been reserved at Westminster magistrates' court in Marylebone Road to process 50 activists every Friday for 19 weeks.
1,130 arrests were made in April; only 79 people were charged at the time, XR reports.
On…
On 8-9 July, four Trident Ploughshares activists were acquitted and four were found guilty at High Wycombe magistrates' court. They were being prosecuted for an all-day blockade of the Burghfield nuclear bomb factory in Berkshire on 24 October last year. (PN 2624-2625)
Jan and Brian Jones, Jane Picksley and Marie Walsh were charged with highway obstruction for sitting in front of Pingewood Gate while locked to each other through arm tubes. District judge Sophie Toms acquitted them on…
1 August 2019
Between 6–9 August, Trident Ploughshares is organising a series of anti-nuclear weapons actions in London. They will run in parallel with the international fast in commemoration of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
With tensions mounting between key nuclear weapon states, we are aiming to highlight the links in the nuclear chain today, as well as drawing attention to the enormous public and social cost of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapon system.
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