At the end of August, the climate action group Extinction Rebellion (XR) struck a new note, politically, when it began its latest two-week ‘rebellion’ in London. It put a much more achievable demand at the centre of its protests: the UK government must stop all new fossil fuel investment immediately.
The actions mostly focused on disrupting the heart of finance in the UK, the City of London, though there were also occupations of the Science Museum, Oxford Circus, and (in Woking) the…
As part of the two weeks of protest against the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair held in London’s ExCeL Centre, Stop the Arms Fair organised a Festival of Resistance on 11 September. They were joined by activists from Extinction Rebellion (XR), Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), Trident Ploughshares and others – there were even jointly-produced flyers available in the information tent (along with copies of PN). The XR activists I talked to all spoke…
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) revealed in mid-September that it had been a target of the Metropolitan police’s undercover Special Demonstration Squad during the 1980s.
Two undercover police officers were involved, according to the long-running Undercover Police Inquiry (UCPI).
‘John Kerry’ worked in the CND office in London between 1981 and 1984.
‘Timothy Spence’ inserted himself into a CND group in East London (as well as defence campaigns against the…
Climate change could flood Faslane naval base, home to Britain’s Trident nuclear missile submarine force. That’s one conclusion of Climate Impact – UK Nuclear Military, a report released in September by the independent research institute, the Nuclear Consulting Group (NCG).
Climate Impact says that; ‘Present UK coastal military nuclear infrastructure is profoundly vulnerable to flooding from sea-level rise, storm intensity and storm surge – with inland nuclear…
‘People shout “have a wash”, “get a job” but I have a full-time job’. Curly, one of the Cardiff Red Rebel Brigade who performed in Porthcawl on 5 June, explains that the Rebels are ‘everyday, regular people’, taking action for change.
‘We’re urging world leaders to act now. Out politicians and our governments are failing us all at the minute and we need them to act now on the real causes of the crisis. We need them to act on global inequality, unchecked corporate profiteering and…
Image A CND ‘NHS Not Trident’ banner was at the head of a large Palestine/peace/anti-war bloc.
PHOTOS: NHS WORKERS SAY NO TO PUBLIC SECTOR PAY INEQUALITY (TOP) LONDON CND (BOTTOM)
Do you remember the case of Ahmed Al-Batati, the British-Yemeni soldier who was arrested across the road from Downing Street on 24 August last year? (PN 2646 – 2647)
We have only just discovered Ahmed’s fate from the very wonderful Declassified UK group, who interviewed Ahmed last December.
It turns out that the authorities decided not to take action against Ahmed, and he was allowed to leave the army in December.
If you remember, Ahmed stood in his uniform next…
Somerset and Avon police and the Metropolitan police have been heavily criticised by an group of MPs for their handling of ‘Kill the Bill’ demonstrations in Bristol in late March and the Sarah Everard vigil in south London on 13 March.
The all-party parliamentary group on democracy and the constitution also condemned the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill, the focus of the ‘Kill the Bill’ campaign.
In a report published on 1 July, the group of MPs found that ‘the police…
On 25 June, Britain’s supreme court set an important legal precedent when it ruled that protesting can be a ‘lawful excuse’ for deliberately disruptive action that obstructs the highway. It made this ruling as it confirmed the acquittal of four Christian anti-arms trade campaigners.
The case dates back to the 2017 DSEI arms fair in East London, when Chris Cole, Henrietta Cullinan, Joanna Frew and Nora Ziegler were arrested (while locked-on to each other in pairs) on the ‘No Faith in…
Extinction Rebellion (XR) reports that 1,000 climate ‘rebels’ descended on Cornwall in mid-June to try to influence delegations at the G7 summit.
On the first day, 11 June, activists from the Global South carried letters to G7 leaders, which security at the summit venue refused to take.
On the second day, rebels marched to the G7 summit media centre in Falmouth and demanded that the press report more effectively on climate change (see photo).
On Day 3, dozens of…
On 7 July, 500 people came to Parliament Square, London, to launch the ‘Drive2Survive’ campaign.
Drive2Survive is a coalition of Romany Gypsy, Irish Traveller, nomadic activists and community organisations opposed to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
The bill would create a crime of ‘residing or intending to reside on land without the permission of the owner or occupier’.
Drive2Survive says the bill threatens to ‘criminalise, demonise and ultimately…
There have been at least seven Palestine Action (PA) actions in the last two months – and a PA prisoner, Yogi Bear, was entering their fifth week on hunger strike in Foston Hall prison as we went to press.
In the latest PA action, at 6am on 12 July, two campaigners smashed windows and property inside a factory in Tamworth, Staffordshire, owned by a subsidiary of the Israeli drone manufacturer Elbit Systems. Two others occupied the roof, spraying red paint.
The activists aimed…
On 14 July, the UK government announced proposals to end all prosecutions for crimes committed during Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ – and all related civil cases, inquests and complaints about police wrongdoing.
One effect would be that no British military personnel – or loyalist or republican paramilitaries – could be prosecuted for murdering civilians, so long as their crimes were committed before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Out of the 3,600 people killed during the…
13 March: We and women across the country are deeply saddened and angered by the scenes of police officers physically manhandling women at a vigil against male violence.
From the start, Reclaim These Streets set out to work closely with the Met to ensure this vigil could go ahead safely, so women could stand together peacefully and safely to remember Sarah Everard and all the women lost to male violence.
The Metropolitan police failed to work with us despite the high court…
Repeated colourful protests against the proposed Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill have taken place in Cardiff, Haverfordwest, Cardigan, Aberystwyth, Wrexham, Bangor and many other towns across Wales from 3 April.
Ceredigion Against the Policing Bill (CAPB) organised their third well-attended demonstration in Aberystwyth on May Day with speakers including Ben Lake MP, Cammilla Mngaza from the Free Siyanda campaign, and Hilary Brown, lawyer and civil rights campaigner for…
Sadly, stories of displaced communities are all too familiar but to the community of Epynt in the heart of Breconshire in mid Wales, it was ‘the end of the world’ as the old lady of Hirllwyn Farm put it as she watched the family furniture being moved by horse and cart.
It is a year since descendants and friends of the Epynt community commemorated the 80th anniversary of the Chwalfa – the eviction of 54 families from their homes and livelihood when the ministry of defence…
In April and May, 11 Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters were acquitted in three separate trials for two different climate actions.
Six XR rebels were acquitted by a jury at Southwark crown court on 23 April. They’d been charged with over £25,000-worth of criminal damage to the Shell building in Central London, and the judge had instructed the jury that five of the defendants had no defence in law.
During XR’s April Rebellion in 2019, the activists had poured fake oil, glued…
On 26 April, the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Bangor city council became the first Welsh council (the 16th in the UK) to pass a resolution supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Quakers in North Wales have a new Nuclear Weapons Group targeting action on councils, particularly via the ICAN Cities Appeal.
David Mellor of Colwyn Bay Quakers explained: ‘We have been inspired by TPNW and then shocked by the UK government’s defence plans to…
Some months before the coronavirus pandemic struck, a small group in Aberystwyth got together to raise awareness of peace issues within the county of Ceredigion, with the ultimate aim of getting the county council to adopt a ‘Peace Charter’.
The first step was to ask Ceredigion county council and some of the county’s main towns to officially recognise and mark International Peace Day.
As it happened, the county council had already decided to do this, but Tregaron and Cardigan…
On 22 April, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) was given permission by a high court judge to bring a case for judicial review of the government’s decision in July 2020 to resume arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Sarah Waldron of CAAT commented: UK-made weapons have been central to a bombardment [of Yemen] that has destroyed schools, hospitals and homes and created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.’
In January the new Biden administration in the US ‘paused’ arms sales…
