Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Support the Decommissioners - on Trial - May 17th

decom | 24.03.2010 13:11 | Iraq | Palestine | Terror War | World

The EDO Decommissioners always intended to go to trial – now set for May 17th – Not as the accused but as the accusers making the case that their action was lawful because they were disarming an arms factory which is complicit in war crimes.

Postponed from last autumn, the trial of the six people charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage at the ITT/EDO MBM offices in Brighton in January 2009 now begins on May 17th.

On 17th January 2009, as the bombs rained down on Gaza, the six defendants entered the EDO factory. They threw computers and filing cabinets out of the first floor window and took hammers to machinery used for weapons production. Their aim was to disable the war machine and to take action against those who profit from the aerial bombardment of Gaza. The offices were out of action for a month.



During the January 2009 attack on Gaza more than 1400 people were killed including over 300 children. Schools and hospitals were targeted.

It is widely accepted that Israel committed war crimes against the people of Gaza. The arms companies, like EDO, who knowingly supplied the weapons to enable the invasion to happen and are complicit in those crimes.

ITT/EDO MBM supply components to the Israeli army, including release mechanisms and bomb racks for use in fighter aircraft. They have also been involved in the design and manufacture of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which were used extensively in reconnaisance and bombing missions against civilians in Gaza.

Elijah Smith stated before entering the factory “I don’t feel I’m going to do anything illegal tonight. I’m going to smash this arms factory so that it cannot actually work to produce parts for the bombs that are provided to the Israeli army which is killing children. The time for talking has gone.”

Tom Woodhead, another decommissioner, said “Prison does not worry me. What does scares me is the international community’s lack of ability to act in the prevention of grave war crimes”.

Charged with conspiracy to commit criminal damage, the six defendants will go on trial as the accusers not the accused. They will argue that they had lawful excuse to disarm the factory because EDO are complicit in war crimes. This follows the precedent set by the Raytheon 9, who were found not guilty at their trial in 2008 for carrying out a similar action in the Raytheon offices in Derry. As Eamonn McCann of the Raytheon 9 has written, “If you hear the sound of a child being brutalised in the house next door and you rush in to smash the door down and save the child, should you be charged with breaking and entering? Obviously not.”

There has been an active campaign against the presence of ITT/EDO MBM in Brighton since the outbreak of the Iraq war. Campaigners include students, Quakers, Palestine solidarity activists, anti-capitalists and academics. Despite an injunction under the protection of harassment act and over forty arrests the campaign is still going strong. Their avowed aim is to expose ITT/EDO MBM and their complicity in war crimes and to remove them from Brighton.

Chloe Marsh, spokesperson for the Smash EDO campaign, said: “The citizens of Britain are no longer prepared to stand idly by whilst Israel commits genocide with the backing of our own government and arms. industries. Brighton is a peace messenger city. ITT/EDO MBM is an obscenity that must be removed from Brighton and the directors of this foul company ought to be tried for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.”

decom
- Homepage: http://www.decommissioners.co.uk

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. where — diddly do-da

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech