David Polden
We learned in November that Parliament Square peace protester Brian Haw was taken into hospital on 23 September with breathing difficulties. Tests showed a tumour.
At the time of going to press, Brian was still in hospital awaiting further tests. The Parliament Square vigil which Brian started on 2 June 2001, continues. Brian says he “will be back and able to cry out again for those denied a voice”.
Meanwhile, the leader of the commons, George Young, said on 14 October that a…
Part of the British “boycott, divestment and sanctions” (BDS) for Palestine movement attended the British Olympic ball on 24 September, to put pressure on the ball’s sponsor, BT, to cut its ties with Bezeq, supplier of telecommunications services to Israeli checkpoints, bases and illegal settlements.
Among the great and good in the world of sport and sports-sponsorship arriving at the red carpet at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London was a long pink stretch limo.
…
The latest attempt to break the Israeli siege of Gaza was organised by Jewish groups using a Jewish-crewed catamaran. The Irene was stopped and boarded by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) on 28 September en route to Gaza with a cargo of aid.
The passengers included 82-year old Holocaust survivor, Reuven Moskowitz; former IDF pilot Yonatan Shapira; and Rami Elhanan, an Israeli who lost her daughter in a Palestinian suicide bombing. The IDF claimed that it used “no violence of any…
A mass siege of the EDO arms factory in Brighton took place on 13 October.
The Hammertime demonstration effectively closed the factory for the day. However, with massive resources and the invoking of public order powers, the police kept control of the streets.
At the start, over 100 police surrounded the convergence centre, and demanded everyone go to a “designated protest area”. Protesters insisted on going to the announced start point, which the police had to…
The vigil, authorised by the police under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA), started in May, when the anti-war Democracy Village was already camped in the square. The village was evicted by the greater London authority (GLA) on 20 July, and a high fence erected around the square apart from an enclave for Brian Haw’s round-the-clock anti-war vigil.
Though we had applied for authorisation for the Tuesday vigils up to December 2010, the police phoned Jim Brann…
On 6 September, as part of a Trident Ploughshares Summer Gathering in Reading, the Aldermaston atomic weapons’ factory was symbolically disarmed.
During the morning rush hour, around 20 supporters of Trident Ploughshares blockaded one gate of the factory to protest at plans to build a new multi-million pound warhead testing facility there. Four chained themselves together inside arm tubes (lock-ons) and lay in front of the gate for two hours, releasing themselves without being…
On 8 July, home secretary Teresa May announced the suspension of “stop and search” powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Section 44 allows police to stop and search anyone in a designated area without needing reasonable suspicion of their being engaged in illegal, let alone terrorist, activity.
According to ministry of justice statistics, in 2008 less than 0.1% of those stopped under the section were even arrested for terrorism offences; and black and…
Eight ships are at the time of writing preparing to try to take badly-needed supplies into Gaza, in defiance of the Israeli naval blockade.
The convoy is the fruit of an international coalition involving the Free Gaza Movement (FGM), the European Campaign to Break the Siege of Gaza, the Greek and Swedish Ship to Gaza Campaigns and IHH, a Turkish campaign. FGM has organised eight similar missions to Gaza in the past three years, the first five successfully.
The last…
A new anti-nuclear movement, “Stop Nuclear Power”, has organised two protest camps at Sizewell, the intended site for one of the first of a new wave of UK nuclear power plants. The second camp took place on 23-26 April, around the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
Over 50 protesters and a nuclear white elephant camped on power station property near existing reactors. There were workshops, a tour of the proposed new reactor site, and a blockade using tape labelled “nuclear…
On 5 March, to mark the International Week Against Racism, the weekly Friday march from the Palestinian village of Bil’in to Israel’s apartheid wall was led by demonstrators dressed as Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela.
Israeli troops fired tear gas, rubber bullets and sound bombs.
The next day, in East Jerusalem, in another regular protest, 5,000 Israelis and Palestinians protested at the eviction of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah…
At 6.40am on 22 February, anti-nuclear power activists from the recently-formed “People Power not Nuclear Power Coalition” began a blockade of Sizewell nuclear power station. They said they were demonstrating against the flawed government consultation on nuclear new build, which ended that day, and the dumping of local democracy.
Under the 2008 Planning Act a new unelected quango, the Infrastructure Planning Commission, will make decisions on “nationally significant…
On 27 January, activists interrupted representatives of the nuclear industry giving evidence to the energy and climate change parliamentary select committee. Two demonstrators unfurled a six-foot banner reading: “Local Democracy Dumped!” – decorated with radiation symbols and pyramids of radioactive waste drums – in the centre of the room, while a third handed out briefings explaining why nuclear power was not the appropriate technology for tackling climate change.
The three,…
The anniversary of the Israeli assault on Gaza was marked with protests in the Middle East and in Britain. Internationals converged on Egypt for the Gaza Freedom March, others took part in a land convoy taking aid from London to Gaza itself with Viva Palestina, and people around the world took part in demonstrations against the continuing siege.
Gaza Freedom March
The Gaza Freedom March – initiated by US author Norman Finkelstein and organised by the US women-led group, Code…
The chief constable of Kent, Mike Fuller, admitted in the High Court on 12 January that his police had conducted illegal “stop and searches” on 11-year-old twins, Dave Morris and other activists at the August 2008 week-long Climate Camp at the Kingsnorth power station. Police had already been heavily criticised for brutality towards protesters at the camp by officers who hid their badge numbers and for using loud music to stop activists sleeping.
The High Court was told that the…
On 16 June, Manchester Plane Stupid disrupted an airport industry conference using helium balloons reading “Happy Retirement”. The balloons floated to the top of the Manchester Central conference venue where they remained with their attached rape alarms ringing loudly.
This occurred just as the industry delegates were posing for a photo shoot for the launch of a new carbon reduction scheme at European airports – which will not include emissions from aircraft. The Airports Council…
