JUDGEMENT DAY FOR THE SMASH EDO CAMPAIGN

Following an adjournment on Monday April 25th defendants from the Brighton anti-war Smash Edo campaign have been told that judgement on any interim injunctionagainst them under the 1997 Protection From HarassmentAct will be heard tomorrow Friday 29th April at 2pm in the Royal Courts Of Justice, The Strand, London.

Justice Gross will present his pre-trial judgement to defendants who have been involved in a year long campaign of peaceful protest outside arms manufacturing company EDO MBM Home Farm Road, Brighton. The company is the UK business unit of EDO Corporation which is one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. It has profited from lucrative Pentagon contracts due to the war in Iraq, and is seeking to ban all protests outside its factory other than for a couple of hours on a Thursday afternoon under thereat of arrest and five years imprisonment if such restrictions are defied.

The court was told on Monday that any interim injunction would be a draconian breach of civil liberties for an unlimited number of people. An interim injunction would end their right to protest before the matter has even come to full trial. Activists have vowed to fight the injunction because it breaches their statutory right of freedom of expression under the European Convention On Human Rights and would collectively punish anyone who wanted to protest outside EDOs factory in Brighton.

Mark Thomas, who came to a demonstration at EDO MBM last week and who has attended the high court in support of the defendants said, ‘What we are fighting for here is the right to protest. The type of protest and demonstrations we can and can't do must not be defined by the company we are opposing. In the faux war against terror the real enemies are the enemies of liberty.’

Ceri Gibbons, who is was not originally named on the injunction, but has volunteered to be a defendant as just one of those who will be affected by its blanket definition of 'protestor' said, “The definition of 'protestor' in the proposed injunction is so broad it covers anyone who disagrees with the arms trade or the war in Iraq or who might do so in the future. It is obscene that a corporation that makes weapons that supply an illegal war in Iraq and the Israeli Defence Forces should be allowed to criminalize our protest against them. Where is the injunctive relief for the people of Iraq and Palestine?”

Chris Osmond, a named defendant who is representing himself in court said, ‘The real issue here is that innocent civilians in Iraq and elsewhere are being killed by weapons components made by this company and the people of Brighton are being silenced’.

The campaign is appealing for anyone who cares about freedom of speech to join them on:

Friday 29th April at 2pm
The Royal Courts Of Justice
The Strand London

Notes for Journalists

Brighton & Hove is a UN Peace Messenger City

The injunction referred to was served under the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act (originally designed to protect women from stalkers) and is the first of its kind directed at activists outside of the animal rights movement. Crucially it is a civil injunction but carries criminal penalties. It affects anyone deemed to be a protestor. Initially EDO/MBM requested a large "exclusion zone" comprising the whole of Home Farm Industrial Estate.

They and Sussex police also wanted to limit demonstrations to two and a half hours, with less thanten people who had to be silent. Judge Gross refusedto impose these conditions at the initial hearing of an interim injunction, which was put in place in the period before the full trial to be heard at the High court in London from November 21st. In his summing up he said, "The right to freedom of _expression is jealously guarded in English law" and consequently refused to impose the requested limits on size, timing or noise made at demonstrations. He also said that he doubted that protesters were 'stalking' employees of EDO MBM.

EDO MBM Technologies Ltd are the sole UK subsidiary of huge U.S arms conglomerate EDO Corp, which was recently named No. 10 in the Forbes list of 100 fastest growing companies. They supply bomb release mechanisms to the US and UK armed forces amongstothers. They supply crucial components for Raytheon's Paveway guided bomb system, widely used in the "Shock and Awe" campaign in Iraq.

EDO also withdrew a threatened libel action against Indymedia over being named as "warmongers".

Lawson-Cruttenden & Co
Solicitors firm working for EDO have been instrumental in developing the Protection of Harassment Act 1997 from a measure designed to safeguard individuals to a corporate charter to make inconvenient protest illegal. Theyhave pioneered to use of injunctions to create large "exclusion zones". They have secured numerous injunctions against anti-vivisection and anti-GM protestors.

Campaign against EDO MBM
People involved in the anti-EDO campaign include, but are not limited to: local residents, the Brighton Quakers, peace activists, anti-capitalists, Palestine Solidarity groups, human rights groups, trade unionists, academics and students. The campaign started in August 2004 with a peace camp. It's avowed aim is to expose EDO MBM and their complicity in war crimes and to remove them from Brighton.

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