Blog posts

    20 Jun 2022

    Milan Rai

    In this online telling of the tale, over twice as long as the article we printed in PN 2660, we hear from the activists behind the landmark legal ruling that deliberately obstructive protest can be legal.

    Two slogan-covered boxes are bundled out of a van in East London. People lie down on the road next to the boxes.

    Within seconds, the police are there.

    So are the activists’ support team and other protesters.

    DSEI, one of the biggest arms fairs in the world, is being set up in the nearby ExCeL Centre.

    Within minutes, the four people lying in the road – Chris Cole, Henrietta Cullinan, Jo Frew and Nora Ziegler – have been arrested.

    *

    This small action,…

    15 Jun 2022

    PN staff

    The Faslane Action for Bomb Ban Camp has led to at least four arrests outside RNAD Coulport, the nuclear warhead storage facility in west Scotland

    At least four people have been arrested among the many actions this week at the FABB (Faslane Action for Bomb Ban) Camp in Peaton Wood, in western Scotland.

    According to the FABB organisers, one of the arrestees was deprived of her heart medication for nine hours by police and threatened with being held overnight without access to her medication.

    The FABB Camp is very close to RNAD Coulport in western Scotland, which holds the…

    13 May 2022

    Ken Jones

    Reject Raytheon AVL, a local anti-militarist campaign group in North Carolina, USA, shut down the construction of a military plant in the US.

    It was an Earth Day to remember. On a beautiful sunny spring day, our local citizen coalition Reject Raytheon (in Asheville, North Carolina, USA) pulled off a three-part demonstration for the protection of the earth and earthlings and against the US military-industrial complex. We rallied, we paraded, and we performed a direct action.

    The event, on Friday 22 April, began at 10am in the Bent Creek River Park, on the banks of the French Broad River. The park sits exactly next to the new…

    26 Apr 2022

    PN staff

    Three campaigning groups respond 

    The news that US billionaire Elon Musk is buying Twitter has sparked a wide range of concerns. One worry has been the emphasis Musk has placed on boosting free speech on the platform. Below are reactions from three different campaigning groups, giving their different perspectives on the issues.

    The EFF (based in San Francisco in the US) says it ‘champions user privacy, free expression, and…

    15 Mar 2022

    Paul Rogers

    Transcript of a Zoom talk by Paul Rogers for Peace News on 10 March 2022

    The talk can be watched here.

    This is an awful subject to try and talk about. What I’d like to try and do, is try and look back and see how we’ve got to here, why it has happened, what has happened and where we are two weeks into this war, and what might happen next and what might be the best sort of outcome we could look for.

    I won’t go into any detail in any one area because…

    02 Mar 2022

    Milan Rai

    Western commentators who rush to condemn Putin’s nuclear madness would do well to remember Western nuclear madness of the past, argues Milan Rai

    [Milan Rai will be giving a Zoom talk about the contents of this article at 7pm GMT on Thursday 17 March 2022. Please click here for more details.]

    On top of the fear and horror caused by the current Russian onslaught in Ukraine, many have been shocked and frightened by Russian president Vladimir Putin’s recent words and actions in relation to his nuclear weapons…

    01 Mar 2022

    PN staff

    Join us on Zoom at 7pm (GMT) on Wednesday 9 March

    When: 7pm (GMT), Wednesday 9 March
    Where: Zoom
    Register here: https://tinyurl.com/paulrogers2022

    Paul Rogers gives an overview of the crisis and how we got here, in the context of the legacy of the Cold War's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; the impact of human activity on the global ecosystem; the growth of hypercapitalism and resulting poverty and insecurity; the competition for energy resources and strategic…

    28 Feb 2022

    Protests, petitions and statements from organisations and individuals demonstrate huge, and courageous, opposition to war from inside Russia. 

    Below are statements opposing the war in Ukraine from groups in Russia. (They are all auto-translated from Russian – if you can help supply better translations, please do get in touch.)

    As well as signing statements, thousands of Russians have gone out in the streets to protest against the war. 5,948 Russian anti-war protesters have been arrested since 24 February, according to OVD-Info, the Russian…

    24 Feb 2022

    Milan Rai

    The peace movement should oppose Putin's war and NATO expansion, argues Milan Rai
     

    Earlier this month, Yurii Sheliazhenko, executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, told Democracy Now!: ‘Both great powers of the West and the East share equal responsibility to avoid escalation of war in Ukraine and beyond Ukraine.’

    This is more of what he said: ‘The escalation towards major war in Ukraine is unnecessary. Our government became part of it when we…

    24 Feb 2022

    Peace movement statements on Russia's invasion of Ukraine 

    Ukrainian Pacifist Movement (24 February)

    Ukrainian Pacifist Movement condemns all military actions on the sides of Russia and Ukraine in the context of current conflict. We call the leadership of both states and military forces to step back and sit at the negotiation table. Peace in Ukraine and around the world can be achieved only in a nonviolent way.

    War is a crime against humanity. Therefore, we are determined not to support any kind of war and to strive…

    22 Feb 2022

    PN staff

    Get to know PN people – and things they’re involved in! These Chats are all 6pm – 7pm on Zoom.

    Tuesday 1 March: Claire Poyner & Network for Peace
    Your chance to find out more about PN admin worker Claire Poyner and the UK-wide Network for Peace (which she co-ordinates), following on from our interview with Claire last issue. Claire will be interviewed by PN editor Milan Rai, and then there will be Q&A. 6pm – 7pm. On Zoom. Register here:

    15 Feb 2022

    Clem McCartney

    While NATO and Russia rattle sabres over Ukraine, the neutral Irish government and a group of local fishermen secured an important agreement to relocate a Russian naval exercise out of their fishing grounds. The message, says Clem McCartney, is that a conciliatory approach can and does work. 

    Many are probably giving much attention and concern to what is happening on the Russian/Ukrainian border and the megaphone posturing going on around it, so may not have noticed what has been happening out in the Atlantic on the southwest part of Ireland’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

    Russia announced that its navy would be carrying out live-firing exercises there and other ships and aeroplanes were advised to avoid the area. Under international maritime law, Russia can do this as it is…

    20 Oct 2021

    Rachael Mellor

    Rachael Mellor explores a key information hub for peace campaigners

    Over the years people have found incredible inspiration in the brave words, actions, and leadership of peace heroes - Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi, to name a few. They display courage, moral strength and compassion to gain the right to freedom and safety, regardless of political or religious differences. 

    To achieve peace, we must compete against governmental institutions, law and order, high-level corruption, the global arms trade, injustices, human rights…

    12 Aug 2021

    Andrew Bolton

    Allen Lane, 2021; 256pp; £20

    Bob Matthews was an American bomb aimer in WWII. He hit the largest air raid shelter in Kassel, Germany and killed hundreds of civilians. He said, 'I was so distraught that I stayed drunk for nine days and was the sickest drunk in the air force.'   A member of my church, I met him 50 years later and we talked several times. In the end he wrote out his story for me. A humble, family man, he was still deeply struggling with the guilt and shame of what he had participated in. He suffered ‘moral…

    03 Jul 2021

    Tom Huggins-Teasdale

    Tom Huggins-Teasdale finds inspiration in a recent Glasgow demo

    Community is one of those words that carries different meanings to different people. It’s a word that people attribute their own values at times and as such the context it’s used in can be all important. For some, it means the people that live around them. For others, community means the people they choose to surround themselves with, in person or online. 

    While generally positive, it does have one downside. Like any grouping, it means that no matter how many people fit into a…