Campaigners claimed complete victory over Israeli-owned drone engine manufacturer UAV Engines yesterday when the company withdrew its application to the High Court to continue an injunction taken out against protesters. Worse was to follow for the company as Judge Purle agreed with campaigner’s arguments that the injunction should never have been granted in the first place and the High Court set the Order aside ab initio (that is, ‘from the beginning’) . The Judge stated: Read more
In January 2015 four anti-drone protesters (Gary ‘Eagle Spits’ Eagling, Katha Karcher, Penny Walker and myself) entered RAF Waddington in order to disrupt on-going British drone operation in Iraq and Syria. We knew that our presence would trigger a security alert that would put the base on ‘lockdown’ which (in the words of an RAF witness at our trial) meant that personnel “were unable to go about their normal duties bringing the effectiveness of the station to a minimum.” Read more
Reposted from Drone Campaign Network
The Drone Campaign Network is appalled by the British government using its armed drones to undertake the targeted killing of British citizen Reyaad Khan in Syria. Many legal scholars and international law experts are arguing that this targeted killing goes beyond what the US is doing in Pakistan and elsewhere and that the scant legal argument put forward so far by the UK government raises many questions. See some of the arguments here: Read more
High Court rules to lift ban on protests at Israeli drone factoryThe High Court today lifted a ban on protests taking place within a 250 metre “forbidden zone” around an arms factory in Shenstone. The ban came in the form of a temporary junction granted by the court on 30 June to UAV Engines Ltd in order to prevent protests outside the factory. Campaigners challenged the injunction in court today, claiming that it was designed to prevent people from exercising their right to free speech and protest at a factory manufacturing weapons used in human rights abuses abroad. Read more
Despite polls and headlines proclaiming ‘overwhelming public support for US drone strikes’ large and persistent protests continue at drone bases throughout the US. In its latest issue, US peace movement newspaper The Nuclear Resister gives an important insight in to this continuing opposition by rounding-up recent protests at some of the US bases facilitating drone strikes. Documenting these protests, arrests and prison sentences gives an important insight into on-going opposition to US drone wars. Read more
On Wednesday 27 May, four British drone protesters (including myself) will go on trial at Lincoln Magistrates Court. We are accused of criminal damage to the perimeter fence of RAF Waddington after cutting a hole to gain entry on January 5 2015 – the first working day of the new year. Arguably this was the day that UK armed drone use moved from being limited and provisional (the armed Reaper drones were acquired only on a limited basis until the end of Afghanistan operations at the end of 2014) to being permanently available for armed remote operations anywhere and at any time. Read more