LUNCH OUT FOR PEACE / CARRY ON UP THE INJUNCTION

After stopping a small and peaceful anti-war march through Brighton on Saturday with a massive police presence including dogs, Sussex Police arrested four people including a pensioner and a seventeen year old girl for reasons as yet unknown. No charges were made against any of the four and they were all released after ten hours from Hollingbury detention centre.

Police intelligence gathering units with video cameras, of which there were over half a dozen units present at the march, including some from the Metropolitan Police followed targeted participants home after the event, through the centre of Brighton, in and out of shops, making it blantantly obvious what
they were doing.

One woman who experienced this disconcerting experience, but did not want to give her name said, ‘and they say WE are the stalkers. It’s curious that in a so called free country we are being treated like terrorist suspects. I have never experienced anything like this before in my life.’

Andrew Beckett press spokesperson for Smash EDO said, ‘Once again we have seen ridiculous police overreaction to a peaceful march in our city. The police did more to disrupt the city centre on Saturday with this repressive measure than we would have done
if we had simply been allowed to march as is our right.'

'Adding to that, the police surveillance afterwards makes it obvious that the way they are treating us is grossly unjust and disproportionate.’

Despite these harassing police tactics, protesters have gone ahead and set up a peace camp in the woods behind EDO MBMs factory and are preparing for a week of actions against the arms dealers. There was a similar peace camp in August 2004 that was widely covered in local media.

On Monday 15th August at twelve noon protesters will ‘Lunch out Against the Arms Trade’ on the grass verge opposite EDOs bomb factory. Employees of the company are invited to attend.

Andrew Beckett said, ‘We are going to eat delicious middle eastern food, and it would be great if some of the employees came out and joined us in their lunch break. It would be good to talk to them face to face about why we have been here every week for the past year protesting against what they do.'

'We are not interested in harassing anyone who works at the factory. We want to make that clear to them. This allegation is a lie spread by the directors of the company to scare their workers. We only want EDOs workers to understand the harm they are contributing towards in war zones across the world, and to stop doing it. This lunch, to which EDO workers are invited, is a time for both sides to relax and enjoy some good food together. Maybe in this way we can communicate with them.’

Later at 4pm on Monday protesters will perform a street theatre production entitled ‘Carry on Up the Injunction’ in which principle players in the EDO injunction, including those who serve the papers each week to demonstrators, will be portrayed in a satirical and humourous style. The performance is a free event open to the public, employees & subcontractors of EDO MBM, and members of the press.

Please come and watch.

SMASH EDO WEEK OF ACTION
PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

DATE: Mon 15th August
EVENT: Lunch Out against The Arms Trade (delicious middle eastern food) - Protesters will sit down to lunch opposite the EDO
factory and eat food from countries they have helped
to bombard with death from the skies. Employees of the
company are invited to join them.
VENUE: Outside EDO MBM, Home Farm Road, Brighton
TIME:12 NOON: Middle Eastern Lunch against EDO

DATE: Mon 15th August
EVENT: Carry on up the Injunction
Creative mockery of EDO MBM’s High Court injunction.
Protesters will act out the absurdity of an injunction that protects arms dealers from peace activists.
VENUE:Outside EDO MBM, Home Farm Road, Brighton
TIME: 4PM

DATE: Mon 15th August
EVENT: Know Your Rights
Expert legal advice workshop about lawful protesting from the experts of Kellys Solicitors, Brighton
VENUE: Campsite, Wild Park, Brighton

DATE: Tue 16th August
EVENT: Creative action against the arms trade
TIME: All Day

DATE: Wed 17th August
EVENT: Palestine Day of Action
TIME: 4 - 6 pm: Including a demonstration to remember the
Palestinian victims of EDO MBM’s products
VENUE: EDO MBM, Home Farm Road, Brighton

Thu 18th August
4 - 6pm: Noise Demo
At EDO MBM, Home Farm Road, Brighton
7pm: Peace Camp Party
The Prince Albert, Trafalgar Street, Brighton

DATE: Fri 19th August
EVENT: Noise Demo
TIME: 11 - 1 pm: Noise Demo
VENUE: EDO MBM, Home Farm Road, Brighton

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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