PEACE CAMPAIGNERS MARCH THROUGH BRIGHTON

Peace campaigners from across the country will march in Brighton, at noon on Saturday to demand that an arms manufacturer stop making bomb components in the UN Peace Messenger City. A rally in Churchill Square will lead on to a march through the city centre with banners, whistles and drums.

The group hope to educate the public about the war crimes committed in Iraq and Palestine. The focus is on EDO MBM, a company making components for the Paveway bomb, which was dropped on cities during the invasion of Iraq. The war has caused over 100,000 civilian deaths since US and UK troops attacked in March 2003.

The march starts a week-long peace camp in Wild Park, involving creative protests at EDO MBM’s factory, workshops and a ‘Lunch against the Arms Trade.’ Campers are expected from across the country to join with the local campaign group Smash EDO.

The previous year of protests has led Sussex Police to suggest EDO MBM apply for a controversial injunction to restrict protest around the factory. A High Court judge ruled that many of the restrictions EDO requested were unnecessary. The temporary injunction has not stopped large, noisy demonstrations continuing.

Andrew Beckett, a spokesman for Smash EDO, said:

“People were very supportive of our last demonstration in the city centre. We really encourage everyone to come and exercise their right to voice opposition to a bomb factory in our city. Some of us have seen the results of EDO MBM’s products, and it is horrific. Our march and peace camp will celebrate life and resistance in the face of repression and genocide.”

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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