UK Indymedia - UK Anti-militarism Newswire Archive

DSEI - Day of Action. Details for the day

10-08-2015 11:57

On Saturday 12th Sept, take part in a big day of action to challenge the arms fair on the weekend before the arms fair begins.

This fun and accessible action will be the culmination of a week of action in the run up to the arms fair to make it as difficult as possible for it to go ahead. Exhibition equipment and military hardware will be rolling (or sailing) into ExCeL – let’s stop it getting to its destination!

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John Pilger to appear at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on August 9th.

30-07-2015 14:53

Journalist, film-maker and author, John Pilger is one of only two to win British journalism’s highest award twice. For his documentary films, he has won an Emmy and a BAFTA. His epic Cambodia Year Zero is ranked by the BFI as one of the ten most important documentaries of the 20th century. "John Pilger unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth and tells it as it is" (Harold Pinter). "Pilger’s work has truly been a beacon of light in dark times" (Noam Chomsky).

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6 July: Join Smash EDO at Elbit Block the Factory mass action

26-06-2015 04:42

Smash EDO is supporting the upcoming Block the Factory mass action at UAV Engines in Shenstone, a subsidiary of Israeli Elbit systems, on July 6th. Please see

https://www.blockthefactory.org/ for updates and further info and follow @blockthefactory on twitter.

Last summer’s assault on Gaza, which killed over 2,200 Palestinians, was one of the most brutal effects of Israel’s ongoing occupation and colonisation of historic Palestine. The massacre was carried out using drones manufactured by Israeli arms company Elbit Systems. In response, activists occupied Elbit’s factory in Shenstone, causing its operations to grind to a halt and costing Elbit over £100,000.

On 6th July, to mark the first anniversary of the assault on Gaza, groups and campaigners from across the UK are going back to Elbit’s factory to demand that the UK stops arming Israel. Join us for a day of creative action in solidarity with Palestine!

Supporting organisations have endorsed the call and will be there taking collective action to block the factory from making these weapons.

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Defend Chelsea Manning & all whistleblowers!

25-06-2015 09:57

You are invited to march with our banner
Defend Chelsea Manning & all whistleblowers!
Saturday 27 June, meet 12.15pm outside Baker St (march starts at 1pm)
Queer Strike, Payday, Compassion in Care, whistleblowers from Yarl’s Wood detention centre, women from the Julian Assange Vigil and many more...All Welcome

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Ongoing weekly demo, Tuesday evenings at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill

24-06-2015 21:53

Join CAAB every Tuesday at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill.
18.00-20.00 BST/GMT

Demos/vigils organised by the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases.

Menwith Hill is the largest US spy base outside the USA. Run by the National Security Agency (National Reconnaissance Office also present), it is situated in the Yorkshire dales, approximately 8 miles from Harrogate adjacent to the A59.

Menwith Hill is the largest intelligence-gathering, interception and surveillance facility outside the USA. The base is unaccountable, secretive, and out of control of the UK government.

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MANILA – ‘Morong 43’ arrest, detention illegal — CHR

22-06-2015 13:46

Five years since the arrest, detention and release of the 43 health workers dubbed as the “Morong 43,” the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has finally issued a resolution stating that state forces violated the rights of the health workers.

Full article | 2 comments

Independence FROM America

21-06-2015 21:33

National demonstration for Independence FROM America at Menwith Hill Spy Base, near Harrogate, Yorkshire

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Armed Forces Day North Wales: Report & Pics

21-06-2015 13:59

The Armed Forces Day 'family fun' extravaganza in Colwyn Bay's Parc Eirias went ahead on Saturday in intermittent drizzle and behind a prominent banner near the main gate stating what you'd have thought would be bleedin' obvious, but apparently to many punters wasn't: 'WAR IS NOT FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT'. As you'd expect of any attempt to disguise the brutal reality of war as fun and games, the event was at best conflicted and contradictory, at worst downright dishonest. With the stated aim of "recognising and honouring our armed forces and veterans" AFD is designed to leave no space open to question the legality or morality of the wars they've been off fighting in recent years, to ask whether warfare offers any real solutions for the problems we face, nor indeed to consider whether our various wars of aggression might conceivably be an aggravating factor in these problems.

In the end it was down to a handful of protesters to pitch up and create this space, right by the main entrance, and to break the illusion that everything in the military garden is rosy.

This event was held a week before official Armed Forces Day on 27 June. There's time to organise a presence at an AFD event in your area and it's well worth doing, however small. Even one person standing vigil at the gate can have a big impact.

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UG#709 - Facing The Failing Culture Of Control - 2 (Atoms For Profit)

09-06-2015 16:01

Power "too cheap to meter" offered humanity a whole lot of control, but that hardly describes what the plutonium industry actually delivered. Our continuing examination of the failing culture of control looks an aspect more serious than climate change - the nuclear power/weapons complex. Our first hour focuses on the close connection between the refinement of the technology of murder and the concomitant degradation of the deliberative process of waging war. Our second hour examines the intimate connections between nuclear war and nuclear power and between the privatization of the nuclear weapons establishment and the abandonment of any kind of effective oversight. The disturbing combination of a nuclear complex beyond government control and a commercially-controlled media which refuses to address the issue will be all too familiar to students of Deep Politics.

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Whistleblower McNeilly's statements compared

18-05-2015 16:57

Able Seaman William McNeilly, an engineer with the Royal Navy, has exposed critical issues with the safety and security of Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system (based at Faslane) and has made a number of statements.

The attached pdf compares these statements. Main variations are towards the beginning and end of the text.

Full article | 4 comments

Royal Navy Sub Engineer blows whistle on Trident Nuclear Weapons System

17-05-2015 07:10

William McNeilly, Royal Navy Submarine Engineer, who says he is now on the run, describes critical safety and security issues with the Trident nuclear weapons system. He writes:

"This... document will enlighten you to the shockingly extreme conditions that our nuclear weapons system is in right now, and has been in the past..."

"British, Americans, Chinese, Indians, Russians... We are all the same; most people all across the globe just want to live in peace. That peace can no longer be maintained by nuclear weapons (Fear)"

and calls for "a new world order through peace and unity."

Full article | 3 comments

Report & Pics: Anzac Day in Wales - Remembering a Pioneer for Peace

28-04-2015 19:28

On Saturday 25 April, over 50 people came together in Llangollen, Wales, on the centenary of the first Gallipoli landings to celebrate the very long life of Elisabeth (Lib) Rowlands-Hughes, born at the end of WWI into a family missing most of its young men.

Lib firmly believed that the lesson of WWI, a war which claimed the lives of four of her uncles, should be NEVER AGAIN. As an early member of the Peace Pledge Union, Lib made the following vow:

I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war

and this is what she did for the rest of her life.

Full article

Event in Llangollen to remember lifelong peace activist Lib Rowlands-Hughes on centenary of Gallipoli landings (Anzac Day)

21-04-2015 12:49

Saturday 25 April is Anzac Day, and on this centenary of the first Gallipoli landings special commemorations are planned in Australia, New Zealand and in London including government sponsored events designed to bolster support for today's wars rather than mourn the terrible losses in WWI and learn the obvious lessons.

Here in Wales, we have chosen this day to celebrate the life of the great peace campaigner Elisabeth (Lib) Rowlands-Hughes, born right at the end of WWI, who lost an uncle at Gallipoli and three more in WWI: near Gaza and in France: uncles she never knew but remembered all her life and whose deaths she described as "an utter, utter, utter waste." Lib, who died last November aged 96, would have appreciated an event for peace on this anniversary which she would have seen as an invitation not to glorify war but to reflect on its futility.

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A Peace Tree in Oxford

20-04-2015 21:18

On 12th April 2015 we planted a Bombed Kaki Tree Junior of Nagasaki in Barracks Lane Community Garden in East Oxford. This is a descendent of a tree which survived the atomic blast at Nagasaki seventy years ago this year. Such trees are planted around the world as symbols of peace and healing as a part of the Kaki Tree Project.

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World Social Forum 2015 in Tunis Joins the Cry "Nous Sommes Bardo!"

06-04-2015 05:59

The World Social Forum in Tunis (24-28 March 2015) closes with resounding unity against global warming, neoliberalism, militarism, terrorism, and for the increasingly important role of women in making another world possible.

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UG#706 - When Are Terrorists Not Terrorists? (States assassinating by drones)

02-04-2015 16:13

We focus on drone technology, looking at the relationship between language and law. A range of speakers explain how the framing of the War On Terror has served the US military's purposes, and note that the US keeps details of its pretexts for state sponsored assassinations by drone as vague as possible. Plausible deniability is only needed if people are in a position where their actions are subject to informed questions. The core of this week's show is made up with a set of speeches from a 2015 meeting about the use of drone warfare, introduced by Bruce Gagnon and augmented by SAS whistleblower, Ben Griffin and a few classic words of Chris Hedges on how war affects its participants.

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Report of UN anti-racism day demonstration in Glasgow 21st March 2015

22-03-2015 20:46

A report of a large anti-racism demonstration in Glasgow on Saturday 21st March with 20 photos.

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Report of Radical Independence Campaign Conference

20-03-2015 17:50

Here is a report with 20 photos of the RIC conference in Dundee last weekend. As we approach the May 7th UK election, events in Scotland may influence what happens in Westminster. How will issues like austerity, Trident and overseas wars be affected?

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The banning of landmines

17-03-2015 15:16

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations working for a world free of anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions, where mine and cluster munitions survivors see their rights respected and can lead fulfilling lives.

The coalition was formed in 1992 when six groups with similar interests, including Human Rights Watch, Medico International, Handicap International, Physicians for Human Rights, Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and the Mines Advisory Group, agreed to cooperate on their common goal. The campaign has since grown and spread to become a network with active members in some 100 countries – including groups working on women, children, veterans, religious groups, the environment, human rights, arms control, peace and development—working locally, nationally and internationally to eradicate antipersonnel landmines.

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Smash EDO response to supreme court ruling on surveillance

04-03-2015 21:26

This morning John Catt lost his case in the supreme court to have his details removed from the 'domestic extremist' database. Smash EDO have issued the following statement in response to the verdict. For more info see Network for Police Monitoring's analysis here:

https://netpol.org/2015/03/03/catt-judgment-supreme-court/ and

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/04/secret-police-file-90-year-old-campaigner-lawful-court-rules for mainstream coverage.