Anti-war action

7 January 2013Blog

New book from Peace News Press to be launched on 10th anniversary of 15 February 2003 march, followed by UK speaking tour.

Thanks to your generosity we've already reached our original goal of raising £1,250 towards the costs of publishing Ian Sinclair's new book "The march that shook Blair: An oral history of 15 February 2003" (see below). However, further backing is still very valuable, as this will enable us to do additional promotional work for the book; and pay for some of the unpaid work that has already gone into the production (eg.…

1 December 2012Letter

So David Cameron is in 2014 going to spend millions on British celebrations of the First World War. Let’s get our hands on some of that dosh.

15 May, International Conscientious Objectors’ Day, could do with some publicity and celebration in places large and small around the country. We locally are already planning a Peace Festival in London’s Finsbury Park on Sunday 3 August — the day before that barbaric war started. It will be a focus of anti-war protest .

Football matches…

1 December 2012News

Nuke maker's AGM disrupted.

On 19 November, following the Trident Ploughshares (TP) annual meeting in London, 15 TP members headed to the UK headquarters of arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin:  Cunard House, 15 Lower Regent St. Two people climbed up beside the doors, others leafleted and held banners across the entrance: ‘Lockheed Martin Maker of Weapons of Mass Murder’ and ‘Use Your Skills For Peace’.

Lockheed Martin has a £3.5bn contract from the British government to design and build a new generation of…

1 December 2012News

Welsh activists take anti-nuclear message to the steps of the Senedd.

‘The state is not a person, it is all of us,
And we all have to choose the way it goes.
Do we choose life?
Do we choose death?
Do we collude in murder?’
(From Trident: a British War Crime by Camilla Cancantata)

On 16 October, on the steps of the Senedd in Cardiff, people came and sang, other people came and spoke out, and a gaggle of Rebel Clowns and three great big red dragons staged the downfall of a nuclear…

1 December 2012Feature

A new Peace News book coming in 2013  

 ‘A fascinating book – a moving and nostalgic piece of oral history. It is an honest, warts and all, account of that historic February 2003 demonstration against Tony Blair’s oncoming war, of the run up to the march and of the differing views about what it achieved.’ Bruce Kent, Vice President CND ‘A powerful and important memoir of an unforgettable moment in our country’s history. ’ Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion

Pre-order a copy by for £10 post-free – it will be delivered in…

28 August 2012News

European activists mark bomb anniversary

Eighty people from all over France and from several European countries – Lithuania, Finland, Germany – and also several Americans, fasted in Paris from 6 August, anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, to 9 August, the date Nagasaki was bombed.

The Paris town hall, the local 2e arrondissement town hall, and the organising associations, the Maison de Vigilance, the Sortir du nucléaire network and the umbrella organisation Armes nucléaires STOP were present throughout the four…

28 August 2012News

Die-in at SNP HQ

TP die-in outside SNP HQ, Edinburgh, 9 August. PHOTO: Trident Ploughshares

Various stalls and ceremonies were held across Scotland over the first week-end in August to mark the anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb. On 9 August, Trident Ploughshares (TP) held a more pointed Nagasaki commemoration at the Scottish National Party’s HQ in Edinburgh.

TP wanted to challenge the SNP leadership’s ludicrous lack of consistency in declaring an absolute opposition to hosting nuclear weapons while…

28 August 2012News in Brief

On 6 August, Hiroshima Day, members of the Atlantic Life Community (ALC) witnessed for peace in a Washington museum by demonstrating next to the refurbished Enola Gay, the aircraft that dropped the Hiroshima bomb. 

The activists then went to the Pentagon and, wearing sack-cloth and ashes, held a vigil to remember the victims of the nuclear attack.

As ALC members prayed by a Pentagon entrance they were arrested and given a court date of 19 October.

 

4 May 2012Blog

On 3 May the police removed the remaining peace box, tent and other items of Maria Gallastegui's Peacestrike protest in Parliament Square after an injunction against the enforcement of the new restrictions on protest was lifted. Below are images of the peace boxes, inside and out, from the last year, and an update on the current situation.

see A SOCPA victory and the blanket ban and Parliament Square Peace Camp resists eviction


The remaining peace box on the morning before it was removed by police.

Maria has been protesting 24/…

27 April 2012News

UK activists join demo in Brussels

On 1 April, activists from Trident Ploughshares and Faslane Peace Camp joined over 800 others (from over 10 European countries) protesting outside NATO’s Brussels headquarters. The demonstration was against NATO’s wars in Afghanistan and Libya, and its possession of nuclear weapons.

The demonstration was organised by the Belgian group, Action for Peace, as part of the run-up to a NATO summit in Chicago on 20-21…

17 April 2012Blog

Two peace projects; one upcoming, one on-going.

This month I want to promote an event coming up in Manchester next month that Maggie Fox and I and the Manchester and Warrington Local Area Quaker Peace group have been organising. Maya Anne Evans is coming to our Central Manchester Meeting house at Mount Street on 20th May as part of her National speaker tour and we are very excited to be welcoming her. We are billing her talk into our Conscientious Objector's day testimony for peace. We are…

30 March 2012News

Blessed ash and charcoal were used to mark the walls of the ministry of defence (MoD) in Whitehall, London, on 22 February.

The Ash Wednesday action was described by its organisers, Pax Christi, Christian CND and the London Catholic Worker, as a ‘celebration of resistance and repentance to nuclear war preparations’.

Seven Catholic Workers, a Quaker, a doctor and a priest were detained after the action, and searched by police…

30 March 2012News

Two peace activists found guilty in 2009 of highway obstruction during an anti-war protest were jailed in the last month.

Both Maya Evans, imprisoned in HMP Bronzefield on 29 February, and Gabriel Carlyle (PN promotions worker), sent to Lewes prison on 21 March, were sentenced to £355 in fines and court costs; both were imprisoned by Hastings magistrates court for two weeks for refusal to pay, after two years of fending off bailiffs.

The May 2009 action was a die-in for NATO’s victims in Afghanistan, held outside the gates of a base in north London.

1 March 2012News

Scuffles break out at Syria/Iran action

Stop the War march om 28 January. PHOTO: Mina Boromond

With increasing pressure for a military attack on Iran and for military intervention in Syria, the Stop the War Coalition called a demonstration at the US embassy on 28 January under the portmanteau title ‘Stop the war before it starts: don’t attack Iran/Syria.’

Coupling the two was illadvised – there are important differences. And so it proved: several speakers were booed or chanted down, and groups supporting the Syrian and…

1 March 2012News

Global protests surveyed

On 4 February, in cities around the world, anti-war protesters, marching to the common message, ‘No war, no sanctions, no intervention, no assassinations,’ led a day of mass action against a possible war in Iran.

The wordwide protests were organised by over 60 anti-war, pacifist and human rights groups.

In the US, the largest protest took place in New York, as a group of 500 marched from Manhattan’s Times Square to the US mission to the United Nations and then to the Israeli…