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Solidarity with Those on Trial in Belfast & Brighton for Resisting Israel's Weapon Manufacturers!
national |
anti-war / imperialism |
news report
Thursday June 03, 2010 11:21 by Ciaron O'Reilly - Catholic Worker/ Ploughshares
Derry Women on Trial in Belfast & EDO Decommissioners on Trial in Brighton I have just spent the last two days in a Belfast court attending the trial of 9 women and 2 men from Derry. Charges on 3 other men were dropped the Tuesday morning we drove up from Dublin. The nine women moved from protest to resistance during the Israeli attack on Gaza in the January of '09. It was a powerful experience to listen to their testimony to why they have risked their liberty to bring down the mainframe computer of the Derry Raytheon plant during the Israeli '09 war on Gaza. |
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9EDO Decommisioners Trial Begins in Brighton/ England.....
Guardian article on the trial....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/07/activists-brig...trial
The judge in the decommissioners trial at Hove Crown Court on day one said that the jury would need to know the historical background to the trial. He recommended that a short summary of the Goldstone Report be submitted to the jury as part of the evidence for the defence. This is a highly significant decision as the report is extremely critical of both the Israeli Defence Force and Hamas. It finds, in particular that war crimes were committed by Israeli F16 in its attack on Gaza in 2009. Outside the court room around 100 people gathered in support of the decommissioners, if you were one of them we are very grateful.
During the second day of the trial the managing director of EDO MBM was called to be a witness by the prosecution. Things got particularly interesting when Dexter Dias QC got the chance to cross examine Paul Hills on whether his company was supplying component parts to the IAF. Dexter Dias QC was determined the truth be told and brought several documents to the juries attention. Including the Zero Retention Force Arming Unit which used to be advertised on the EDO MBM website as being used in the IAF VER 2 which is the F16 bomb rack.
Check out this website for background on the action and updates on the trial......
http://decommissioners.co.uk/
A simple act of solidarity you could do would be to send a letter or postcard of solidarity to the defendant who has been remanded in jail for the past 18 months since the action......
Elijah Smith,
A3186AM,
HMP Lewes ,
1 Brighton Rd,
Lewes,
Sussex,
BN7 1EA
ENGLAND
Paul Hills, the managing director of EDO was in the witness box from Tuesday morning until the end of play Friday 4.30ish. So that'll be more like 4 days, although Friday morning was a late start due to both the Judge having other commiments to attend to and Hills having to return to the arms factory EDO, MBM, ITT to fetch more documents he felt he needed. A great deal of information has been presented to the jury by the defence.
Strange this, because upon his return and the continuation of his evidence - when he referred to said documents - the defence council pointed out that they had already been shown to Hills and the court in the previous days as part of Hills being cross examined.
One other thing that Hills wanted time to clarify what other commpanies he was dealing with and whether he should name them.
As it transpired one turned out to be Raytheon.
The trial continues on Monday with Hills back in the witness box.
Any more details on this weeks evidence and I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the end of the trial when we can sit down and agree to what should or needs to be published. This week has been most indepth and thorough regarding the factories activities.
It has been most revealing.
I hope you understand this as there has been a great deal of interest from the police both local and national.
One of the EDO,MBM,ITT defendants was aquitted yesterday.
After enduring 18 months of bail conditions, stress and hassle the judge directed the jury to find Rosa, who was arrested outside the factory wearing a silver party dress, NOT guilty.
Report on EDO Decommissioners Trial - end of week 2
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/06/453920.html
"Report from the Trial of the EDO Decommissioners in Brighton/England"
by Ciaron O'Reilly
This past week I travelled down to Brighton/England for the jury trial of the "EDO Decommissioners". The trial is in its third week and likely to go into a fourth. The EDO Decommissioners http://decommissioners.co.uk/ are a group of Bristol based anti-war activists who travelled to the EDO plant in Brighton during the January '09 Israeli bombing of Gaza.
The Brighton EDO plant provides the Israeli Air Force with components for their F16's - a hi tech destructive weapon that was being used extensively in the Israeli bombing campaign over Gaza. The 6 Bristol activists were arrested after carring out extensive nonviolent disarmamant of the Brisol plant.
3 Brighton based activists who have been involved in the long local campaign against EDO ( see the film "On the Verge" about the history of this campaign
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tf6SYeyVEE )
were also arrested outside the factory after extensive disabling of the EDO plant was carried out by the Bristol activists.
One of those charged Elijah Smith has been denied bail since the action and has remained in custody for the past 18 months awaiting this trial. He is brought from Lewes Prison daily for the trial taking place in Hove Crown Court. Other defendants were released under harsh bail conditions that prohibited any communication between the defendants. This made preparation for trial and organising around the trial difficult.
It was a privilege to sit in the public gallery and hear the testimony of two of the defendants and also an expert withness from Bradford University Peace and Conflict Studies. The expert witness told the story of the history of the high crimes of the Israeli state against the people of Gaza. The testimonies of the defendants were stories of good people who could not remain silent or ineffectual in the confines of the safety valve of state sanctioned protest when so many lives were being extinguished in Gaza in January '09 with weapons systems manufatured in Britain.
The defendants I met appeared in good spirits, placing their suffering and stress in the context of the march larger and deadlier forms experienced by the people of Gaza. Their support at the trial seems mostly to be friends from Bristol and Brighton and fellow activists they have met over the last 18 month trek through the courts.
I always find such trials a great testament to the human spirit and a challenge to those who experience them. I have a continual frustration with moderate/protest groups (eg. Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaigns et. al.) who claim to be leading campaigns around such issues failing to offer or promote practical solidarity to those who move from state sanctioned protest to nonviolent resistance. It is a betrayal of those who put themselves on the line and a missed opportunity for those moved with compassion for the victims to pull the issues down from abstraction into daily life. Nothing could be less abstract than these 9 good folks in Brighton putting their liberty on the line after disabling the locally produced components of war crimes against the people of Gaza. When one is in the courtroom one experiences the rubber hitting the road in terms of solidarity from those of us afforded a confort zone at the imperial centre to those who inahabit the free fire fringes like Gaza.
*Report on Trial June 24th. 2010
http://bristol.indymedia.org/article/692658
**Report on Trial June 18th. 2010
(following charges dropped against one EDO defendant
www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/06/453920.html
***Consider sending a postcard or letter of solidarity to Elijah Smith in prison..........
Elijah Smith, A3186AM, HMP Lewes , 1 Brighton Rd, Lewes, Sussex, BN7 1EA England
****Consider sending a donation to help defendants with trial expenses. Make cheques payable to "Decommissioners" and send to : Decommissioners , Booty, P.O. Box 6
82 Colston St. Bristol BS1 5BB ENGLAND
Peace activist tracked at 80 lawful demonstrations.
Surrveillance logged banal details for years.
How the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) spends its funding is describe in the article written at the link below.
Check out the picture on page 3 of Saturday's Guardian. (Hove Crown Court). Wicked!
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to appear in the online version. Bloody mainstream press!
Anyway the video is still worth a look.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/25/peace-campaign...emist
Brighton/ENGLAND - Jury Clears 6 EDO Decommissioners - Verdicts on 2 Remaining Defendants this Friday
Hi ya from beautiful Brighton. The trial entered its fourth week. The jury was sent out on Tuesday. On Wednesday afternoon they returned unanimous acquittals on 6 of the 9 defendants. Trial resumes on Friday, if the jury cannot reach a unanimous decision on the other two defendants, the judge has the option of sending the jury out ofr a majority 10-2 or 11-1 verdict.
Elijah Smith remains in Lewes Prison, there was a solidarity demonstration outside the prison last night. The public gallery has been full of supporters including representation form County Clare and Kerry. Read the Guardian article below for more detail..........
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/30/activists-a...itted
Google EDO Decommissioners for more background on the action and the case etc
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3914014,00.html
ONLY a Zionist would be so arrogant.
The Judge's crime??
I can see how the Tosser Prosser would be offended - I mean a statement like that is, like, worse than the Holocaust, man!!
I've just spent the past week at the EDO Decommissioners trial in Brighton/England. It was a privilege to accompany these good people, and their support, to trial. The 8 defendants were arrested during the January '09 Israeli bombing of Gaza following their nonviolent disarmament of EDO offices in Brighton. EDO produces components for the Israeli F 16's that were wreaking extensive damage, and claiming hundreds of lives, in Gaza at the time.
As reported previously, 5 of the defendants were acquitted by the jury last Wedmesday afternoon June 30 during the fourth week of the trial. On Friday morning July 2nd. the Judge directed the jury to acquit the two remaining defendants.
For a more detailed report of the trial, video footage and still photos go to the Schnews link below.........
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/07/454845.html
Some other still photography from the trial
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/07/454877.html
EDO Decommissoners Trial Blog
http://decommissioners.co.uk/blog/