smashEDO

30th November 2005

PEACE ACTIVISTS PUBLISH OPEN LETTER TO SUSSEX POLICE

Peace Activists in Brighton have taken the unusual step of negotiating with the police via an open letter. The text of the letter is as follows:

OPEN LETTER TO SUSSEX POLICE

We represent a coalition of peace activists who are against the presence of a weapons manufacturing plant in Moulsecoombe. Activists have called for a demonstration in the centre of town on 10th December, International Human Rights Day, followed by a march to the Level.

The last time protestors attempted to march peacefully through town on August 13th, they were confronted by a large number of police including officers from the Met.

Approximately 50 protestors were prevented from marching down North Rd, which was blocked by police dogs. Police pushed the marchers into a side street, preventing them from demonstrating and made four arrests including that of an eighty two year old man and a sixteen year old girl.

We understand that you have repeatedly attempted to communicate with campaigners in order to negotiate events on the 10th December. It has been suggested that organisers co-operate with the police if they want the right to demonstrate.

Extracts from emails received from PC Sean Mcdonald 12th October: I am more than willing to assist organising your protest on 10th December to ensure it passes peacefully. If you do not wish to interact with us then we will encounter similar problems to last time.

23rd November: Presently you have not outlined what your proposals are for this day and our planning must reflect this. On 13th August this year you held a similar "event" and you were aware how this was Policed.(sic)

We find this approach unnecessarily threatening and the fact that you deployed over 100 officers to make arrests for minor public order offences, three of which cases have already been dropped , says that you were clearly in the wrong on that day. It is therefore wrong to threaten us with similar behaviour as we exercise our democratic rights.

The unfortunate fact is that you have been extremely swift to pass on information about activists to Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, the solicitor acting for EDO MBM in the injunction trial. Anybody stepping forward as an organiser runs the risk of becoming involved in a potentially ruinous civil trial. (As a result of the legal costs of an injunction taken out by Lawson-Cruttenden in Cambridgeshire, one activist nearly lost her home).

It was Inspector Kerry Cox who initially suggested the idea of an injunction to EDO MBM to restrict protest at the factory. If the defendants win, can they expect an apology from you?

Nor has your behaviour as a force during the Labour Party Conference, where you detained Walter Wolfgang under the Terrorism Act, and arrested another man for wearing an offensive T –shirt, filled us with any confidence over your regard for civil liberties.

You say your actions on August 13th were intended to prevent “serious disruption to the life of the community”. We say that demonstrations and marches are a vital part of the life of the community, not a disruption of it! We intend nothing more than to peacefully gather in Churchill Square and march to the Level to spread our message about Brighton’s involvement in the arms trade. We do not believe that in a democratic society we should have to apply to the police for permission to assemble. We suggest that you reconsider your approach and allow us to march on the 10th.

Yours faithfully

Michelle Tester

www.smashedo.org.uk

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.