David Polden
There were 1,252 arrests during a fortnight’s protests in Washington DC against a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline designed to ship more than 830,000 barrels a day of oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to Texas, USA.
Sit-ins were held outside the White House in Washington DC from 20 August to 3 September, leading to the arrest of top climate scientists, Texan and Nebraskan landowners, Canadian First Nation leaders, former White House official Gus Speth, NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen…
At 4.45pm on 21 June, No Borders and refugee solidarity activists blockaded the access road to the Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres near Heathrow airport, to stop a mass deportation flight to Baghdad.
About 70 Iraqi refugees, mostly Kurds, were due to be flown out on a specially-chartered flight at 11pm. They had been assembled at the centres from other detention centres around the country, including 20 from Campsfield who were on hunger strike against deportation.
…On 28 June, Sheikh Reed Salah, leader of the largest Palestinian political party in Israel, was arrested by UK border police, held in Bedford high security prison and served with a deportation order.
Salah had entered the UK on 25 June, using his Israeli passport, as he had before, for a speaking tour and had already spoken to MPs in the Commons and to gatherings at Queen Mary University, Conway Hall and Leicester.
On 18 July, Salah won an appeal against detention and was…
All over Britain, people came together to commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki Days. There were vigils, ceremonies and tree plantings whilst other people chose to raise awareness by leafleting, fasting or floating peace lanterns. This is a round-up of a few of the events that took place:
In Southampton, over 100 people gathered at Bitterne Park United Reformed Church Hall for a meeting with the Mayor, Cllr Edwina Cooke, and Bruce Kent. After the meeting the audience and speakers viewed…
A year ago, Freedom Flotilla 1 was attacked by the Israeli navy causing the deaths of nine crew members aboard the Mavi Marmara. The new flotilla will consist of 10 boats (two of them cargo ships), supported by campaigns in over 20 countries, including the UK. The Mavi Marmara, however, has pulled out of the flotilla, under pressure from the Turkish government.
On 16 May, a Malaysian ship carrying 7.5km of sewage pipes for Gaza’s shattered sewage system was fired on by Israeli naval…
Five defendants arrested at the Devonport blockade in November 2010 went free after appearing before Plymouth magistrates on 9-10 June.
Three Scottish defendants, who had locked-on across the gate to the dock where Trident nuclear submarines are serviced, had been charged with “obstruction of a constable”. The prosecution tried to change this at the hearing to “obstruction of the highway”. The District Judge dismissed the cases because “obstruction of the highway” was a summary…
The Arab Spring appears to be having positive results for Palestinians, notably the rapprochement between the main Palestinian political parties Fatah and Hamas, and the re-opening, after four years, of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
However, the antipathy between Fatah and Hamas persists and it remains to be seen whether they will indeed form a joint government and hold elections in 2012. And the re-opening of Rafah on 28 May was only partial: commercial traffic is not…
On 14 April, the high court ruled that police acted illegally when they cordoned (“kettled”) Climate Camp protesters in Bishopsgate, London, at the G20 protest on 1 April 2009. The case was brought by two people who were among 5,000 kettled by police for five hours.
The judgment does not rule the tactic of kettling illegal, but places limits on its use, concluding that: “The police may only take such preventive action as a last resort catering for situations about to descend into…
The Irish environmental group “Shell to Sea” has published a video in which a police sergeant suggests to another Garda (Irish police officer) that they should say to an arrested protester: “Give me your name and address or I’ll rape you”. A suggestion that provokes laughter.
The recording was made on a video camera confiscated from the protesters but not switched off. Only after a protest outside the Irish parliament did the Gardai apologise for the remark.
It was in January 2003 that Mary entered Shannon airport in Ireland and took an axe to a US warplane bound for Iraq. She was arrested and held in Limerick prison before being charged with $1 million criminal damage and released on bail.
A few days later, the same warplane was disarmed by the Pit Stop Ploughshares after being repaired. They were charged with $2.5m criminal damage, but were unanimously acquitted after four trials. In Mary’s case, after two trials, one resulting in…
Departing in May, a boat carrying a contingent from Britain will join a convoy from 20 countries to the besieged people of Gaza.
This will be largest sea-borne mission yet to break the Israeli siege of Gaza and will mark the first anniversary of the Israeli attack on a six-ship aid convoy in international waters which resulted in the deaths of nine people and injuries to 54 others on the Mavi Marmara, the largest ship in the convoy.
Israel refused to permit a UN…
On 10 March, in the teeth of mass political opposition, Wisconsin’s Republican-dominated state assembly passed the governor’s bill to repeal most collective bargaining by public employee unions, after police carried demonstrators who had been occupying the assembly ante-chamber.
The grounds given for the measure were that it would help the state to balance its budget There had been daily demonstrations at the state capitol building in Madison, often very large, since 15 February…
Stop Nuclear Power protesters, disguised as fish, locked themselves together across the entrance to Sizewell nuclear power station on 2 February. They were graphically illustrating their concern that nuclear operators and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate have not taken the possibility of flooding and coastal erosion at Sizewell into account when considering plans for the site, particularly those for building a new nuclear reactor and storing radioactive waste there until at least 2130.…
In the counter-terrorism review announced on 25 January, the British government proposes replacing “control orders”, found by the courts to contravene human rights legislation, with a modified system.
This system will still allow electronic tagging, enforced overnight residence and restrictions on freedom of association and movement, including foreign travel bans. It will limit control orders, presently unlimited, to two years. But if it is possible to make a new order as soon…
Over 50,000 protesters mobilised to delay the twelfth annual transport of highly-radioactive material (123 tonnes in 11 carriages) from La Hague, France, to storage at Gorleben, Germany, in early November.
In France, five activists locked-on with arm tubes under the rails, stopping the train for 3½ hours. Police cut them free so carelessly that three required surgery. In southern Germany, a blockade by over 1,500 forced the train to change route. People dangling from bridges also…
