Members of Wrexham Peace and Justice Forum, Wrexham Women for Peace and others took part in a solidarity demonstration outside the Broughton Raytheon factory in Flintshire this afternoon. As well as showing solidarity with the Raytheon 9, the group were drawing attention to the involvement of Raytheon in the Metrix Consortium of arms manufacturers and the Open University which hopes to run the military "School for Slaughter" at St Athan near Cardiff.

 http://www.no2militaryacademy.com
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/397679.html
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/397615.html

The demo covered the two hours from 3.30 - 5.30 pm when hundreds of workers at Raytheon and neighbouring Airbus leave for home. We set up at the end of the narrow lane leading from the factory and which joins the busy Broughton to Saltney road. As the factory traffic queued to exit this lane, there was plenty of time for workers to read the placards and banners.

We were joined by Airbus security who were there to 'protect our workers' and by two cops who obviously haven't read the new North Wales police guidelines on photography...

"If a member of the public is taking pictures of an officer in a public place and it is causing concern to the officer, it is suggested that the officer approaches him or her to ascertain as to why the pictures are being taken, asking them if necessary, not to do so. If they refuse then the officer has no remedy unless and until the pictures are published when they can be considered in the context of the actual publication."

...and were threatening to seize the cameras of anyone daring to snap them.

Some local journalists on the trail of a rumoured lorry fuel demo also stopped by.

There were reports tonight that the trial against the nine collapsed today, but early reports on the web were later removed, apparently due to a gagging order by the court. [The text reporting the trial's collapse has now been removed by author of this article].

 http://www.raytheon9.org