Nobody in my early life – myself included – would have suspected that I had a future as a troublemaker ahead of me. Growing up in rural Suffolk in the 1970s, the youngest of four siblings, there didn’t seem to be much wrong with the world. I don’t recall my family discussing politics, and although my father listened to the news every day, I never paid it much attention.
…
I was charged with assaulting police officer in the execution of his duty on 12 September in the run-up to the DSEI arms fair in East London.
The officer had grabbed me without warning when I was climbing a pillar to reinforce a banner which I had stuck up there a little earlier, and I had swung my arm out to try and make him let of me. The gaffer tape in my hand had hit his face.
There were two lines of defence: firstly, that the police officer was not acting in the…
The British government must end arms sales to Saudi Arabia because of the Saudi naval blockade of, and air strikes in, Yemen that are breaching international law, according to Amnesty International and Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). An arms cut-off is supported by most people in the UK, a recent poll has found.
On 10 January, a law firm acting for CAAT began taking legal action against the government, issuing a ‘pre-action protocol letter for judicial review’. Leigh Day cited…
You who see injustice all around
But have not the courage or the will to fight or stand your ground
We who see but are too scared
There are not enough of us prepared
To put our lives at risk time and again
And then comes a drop of rain
To the parched lips of a world
That needs to feel hope again
We are dying as a people and a nation
A third of our people have been killed in 21 years
Of illegal occupation
Ten UN resolutions
…
ZH 955, the disarmed Indonesian Hawk stands in the hangar at British Aerospace’s Warton facility with the Seeds of Hope banner on its nose cone.
On 29 January, Peace News published a new book about the Seeds of Hope Ploughshares action, when a small group of women hammered on a British Hawk jet about to be exported to Indonesia to be used in the genocidal occupation of East Timor. The action took place 20 years ago, on 29 January 1996, and then the hammerers spent six…
Press release
27 January 2016
Peace News [1]
WOMAN WHO DISARMED WARPLANE PUBLISHES MEMOIR
New book marks 20th anniversary of land-mark anti-arms trade action
7pm, 29 January 2016, Friends House, London: A woman who disarmed a warplane bound for genocide in South East Asia will be launching her newly published book about the action and subsequent trial at an event in Friends House, London this Friday, the 20th anniversary of the action itself [2].
…
I had barely recovered from the marathon of activism against the DSEI arms fair in East London in September (see PN 2586–2587), when I found myself on a plane to Seoul, South Korea, to take action against the ADEX (International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition) arms fair. I joined activists from five continents for a gathering organised by the Korean anti-militarist group ‘World Without War’ and the international network War Resisters International.
The gathering aimed to…
On 29 January 1996, Jo Blackman, Lotta Kronlid and Andrea Needham broke into a British Aerospace factory in Lancashire and used household hammers to disarm a Hawk warplane bound for Indonesia. They were arrested, charged with £2.4m of criminal damage, and sent to prison to await trial. A week later, Angie Zelter joined them, accused of conspiracy. After six months in prison, all four were acquitted by a Liverpool jury in a court case that effectively put Britain’s arms trade on trial.…
'The heroic actions of this small, but determined, group of women is told brilliantly in Andrea Needham’s fascinating account…. You can sense just how much human life matters to each and every one of these women. They spent six months in jail for acting upon their consciences – but were eventually, and rightly, found to be innocent. Anyone interested in social change, or campaigning for peace, should read this book and take inspiration from the brave actions of these amazing women.'…
There were huge tailbacks during day-long blockades of both entrances to the ExCeL exhibition centre in East London on 12 September, as a day of mass action capped a week of creative disruption in the run-up to the huge biannual DSEI arms fair.
On Monday 7 September, the week of action was launched with a blockade in solidarity with Palestine. Activists stopped a military vehicle from entering…
On 18 March, Yorkshire peace activist Sylvia Boyes, 72, was sentenced to 14 days in New Hall prison for not paying a fine arising from an anti-arms trade protest.
Sylvia had been fined £100 and ordered to pay £340 court costs after being found guilty of obstructing the highway at the defence and security equipment international (DSEI) arms fair in East London in September 2013.
On 3 February, Campaign Against Arms Trade staffer Anne-Marie O’Reilly strode onto the stage of the annual ADS arms industry dinner at the Park Lane Hilton in London. She took the microphone and urged the arms dealers present to consider a career change. (Also present were ministers, over 40 MPs, and many top-ranking civil servants and ministry of defence officials.)
Anne-Marie’s opening words were: ‘I’m here tonight because my child is going to be born in four months’ time.... He…
CAAT national gathering at Conway Hall,
London, 21 March 2015 Photo: CAAT
One of the most powerful speeches at the CAAT national gathering this year came from Sayed Alwadaei, a Bahraini activist who was imprisoned for taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations and then had his citizenship revoked in Bahrain.
Sayed reminded us of the terrible human cost of the arms trade, and the impact that those of us campaigning over here can have. ‘Your action gives Bahrainis a voice’, he…
‘Arming All Sides’ is an excellent new online First World War resource initiated by Campaign Against Arms Trade.
The website questions what role the arms trade played before, during and after the war, what opposition was mounted to the trade, and how the war affected what people thought about making and selling armaments. armingallsides.on-the-record.org.uk
Like his earlier No-Nonsense Guide to the Arms Trade, Nicholas Gilby’s latest book is a well-written, easy-to-read information tool for activists, providing a comprehensive history of corruption in the British arms trade since the 1960s.
Though it’s sometimes hard to keep track of all the players, this is more to do with the inherently shady, obfuscatory world of corrupt arms deals rather than any shortcomings on the author’s part.
The multi-billion-pound Al…
