The Friendship Inn in Borth, near Aberystwyth, was packed to the rafters on 8 September as people gathered for the potentially solemn purpose of raising funds in support of ‘Freedom from Torture’. This organisation dreams of a world free from torture but, until such time, it supports survivors of torture in rebuilding their lives and it works to bring perpetrators to account.
The vision for the…
On 20 June, peace campaigners from Wales locked on to the railings outside the Westminster parliament in London together with about 50 Scottish and English activists as part of a Trident Ploughshares action.
Supported by nearly 50 more activists, they highlighted the UK’s refusal to engage with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons adopted by the UN in 2017. Several MPs,…
In May–June, a delegation from Welsh anti-nuclear group PAWB (People Against Wylfa B) visited Japan (under pro-nuclear PM Shinzo Abe) at the invitation of Friends of the Earth Japan. PAWB has been fighting a 30-year battle against the building of new nuclear reactors on the beautiful coast of Anglesey, North Wales.
After the Fukushima disaster, German owners pulled out of Horizon Nuclear (formed to build nuclear power in the UK) in 2012, and sold it on to Hitachi – so PAWB decided…
Candidates will step off the campaign trail; sports stars off the pitch; celebrities will scrub off makeup and teachers will lay down chalk; cooks will close restaurants and bring meals to protests; pensioners too will break daily routines and join together in an unprecedented historical moment.
As we deal with devastating climate impacts and hurtle towards dangerous climate tipping…
On 10 June, there were processions of women and girls in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London to commemorate the centenary of the Representation of the People Act that gave the first British women the right to vote.
Carried on these processions were 100 centenary banners, made by 100 women artists who had been invited to create them by working with communities across the UK.
As a textile artist, I make my own work for…
Earlier this summer, Glasgow city council announced that it would not host any more arms fairs and three anti-arms trade protesters in Cardiff were acquitted of trespass outside an arms fair.
In Glasgow, there were protests against the Undersea Defence Technology (UDT) exhibition in Glasgow, sponsored by arms manufacturers BAE Systems and Babcock. Despite the criticism, the Scottish National Party-controlled council defended the UDT arms fair in mid-May, only withdrawing its ‘…
The public and press benches were absolutely full on the morning of 20 June, when the court of appeal in London ruled that the British government had acted ‘irrationally and unlawfully’ in allowing UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen.
The ruling means that the government must not allow future sales to the Saudi-led forces that are at war in Yemen, and that it must review existing…
At the end of June, hundreds of people joined a mass action camp blockading energy company Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road (PNR) fracking site in Lancashire, three years after Lancashire county council rejected the company’s application to drill for shale gas.
Anti-fracking network Reclaim the Power organised ‘Block Around the Clock’ as a 48-hour non-stop non-arrestable festival of resistance…
The 26th annual conference of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (GN) was held from 22–24 June at the Friends Meeting House in Oxford.
Will Griffin, Mary Beth Sullivan and I went a week early to Leeds and GN board convener Dave Webb organised talks…
The issue of undercover policing gained more attention in June because of a brave stand by Lush, the vegetarian/vegan cosmetics company. Then the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (COPS) and COPS Scotland held conferences in London and Glasgow on 7 July and 23 June, marking 50…
Over 2,500 arrests were made this summer during a massive wave of nonviolent civil disobedience across the United States in a new ‘Poor People’s Campaign’, 50 years after the original campaign led by civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
The original Poor People’s Campaign ended with 3,000 activists camping for six weeks in May–June 1968 on the National Mall in the centre of Washington DC.
In…
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https://peacenews.info/node/9413/ten-ways-join-climate-strikeEurope’s largest single-issue peace group, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is joining Ethical Consumer magazine, Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham, 10:10 Climate Action and Freedom Bookshop in London, Peace News and many others in the Global Climate Strike.
Here…
In 2009, home educators won a great battle for democracy, for privacy and for the open practice of learning. Through internet organising, lobbying and a bit of luck, we got two clauses removed from the Education Bill. These clauses would have turned home education (HE) into a narrow school model monitored and regulated by local authorities.
Since then, many local authorities have…
On 7 July, the Palestine Chronicle reported that the Palestinian ‘Great March of Return’ had taken place near the Gaza-Israel border for the 15th consecutive Friday. A Palestinian man was shot dead by an Israeli soldier, bringing the overall Great March death toll to 135.
Nearly 400 Palestinians were injured on 7 July, according to the Palestinian ministry of health. Overall, some 5,000 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli live fire and tear gas during the largely…
We can expect a lot of twists and turns over the next month, before the unexpected 12 June summit in Singapore between US president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. There is a reasonable way forward that experts agree gives a solid chance for building towards some kind of…
The death toll continued to rise as PN went to press. Israeli snipers killed over 100 unarmed Palestinians in six weeks of demonstrations at the fence separating Gaza from Israel.
During the ‘Great March of Return’, Israeli forces injured more than 5,000 protesters, over 3,000 of them with live…
On 27 March, I was arrested, handcuffed and placed in a police cell for over 12 hours. My crime? Nonviolently protesting at an event glorifying violence: the Cardiff Arms Fair (officially ‘Defence Procurement, Research, Technology and Exportability 2018’).
The Welsh government has built links between Wales and arms industries – selling it as job creation. The arms fair, in the Motorpoint Arena…
On 7 April, the organisers of the Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair excluded two people from the gathering, which was taking place in the huge Black-E community arts centre near the city centre.
Brian Bamford, a member of the Northern Anarchist Network, was told in advance that he would not be allowed in, and was stopped at the door. Another man (whose name is not known) was taken from a workshop by…
People from across Ceredigion and beyond gathered in Aberystwyth on 16 April to protest against the UK government’s decision to bomb Syria. Organised by Stop the War Ceredigion and Aberystwyth Peace and Justice Network, the protest attracted more than 70 people.
It was part of a UK-wide series of protests organised by the Stop the War Coalition against the UK government, referring to the…
On 11 April, four defendants from Faslane Peace Camp were tried for aggravated trespass allegedly committed during last September’s week of action against the DSEI arms fair in London.
Most of the 102 activists arrested during the week of action were charged with highway obstruction. The Faslane four were the only protesters to be charged with aggravated trespass, even though their blockading actions were identical to those of many of the others arrested.
The Faslane…
