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25th July 2007
Lebanon War Blockaders Plan Appeal against Guilty Verdict
Three anti arms trade activists who chained themselves to concrete barrels outside Brighton arms dealers EDO MBM last Summer were found guilty in Brighton Magistrate’s Court yesterday.
Rob Frost, Sam Miller and Sarah Harris took part in the blockade last July to highlight EDO MBM’s role in supplying weapons for use by the Israeli army in Lebanon. The Israeli military’s bombing campaign claimed over a thousand lives in just a few weeks.
Throughout the case the prosecution argued that EDO MBM did not supply weapons to Israel. However, they refused to disclose details of their business or copies of their export licences to the defence. Peter Davis, ex-director of the factory, was questioned for several hours over the lawfulness of the factory’s business.
The defence argued that the protesters’ action was necessary to highlight the war crimes that were going on in Lebanon. In his closing submissions barrister Tony Stanford, defending, said ‘the trains winding their way to concentration camps would not have been reported by today’s media. These events have been repeated in Rwanda, in Sudan and now Lebanon’
Two of the defendants in the case had witnessed first hand the violence used by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians.
The defendants were sentenced to a 12 month conditional discharge. There will be an appeal against the decision.
Sarah Harris, one of the defendants, said, ‘We took part in the protest to raise public awareness that the war crimes being committed in Lebanon and elsewhere do not happen in a vacuum.
Companies like EDO MBM are complicit in these crimes by supplying weapons which they know will be used to kill civilians’.
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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