Scotland’s first SOCRAP charges — 6 arrested inside Faslane high security area

Faslane Naval Base, Scot­land, Sep­tem­ber 4, 2007, 06.30 a.m.
Police say 3 women have been arrest­ed inside the high secu­ri­ty fences at the Tri­dent nuclear sub­ma­rine base after enter­ing the base to get fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the weapons of mass destruc­tion deployed by the UK gov­ern­ment in con­tra­ven­tion of Scot­tish and Inter­na­tion­al Law. Accord­ing to the police, the women, who were act­ing to uphold the law, are being charged under the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act, which is increas­ing­ly being used to pre­vent peace­ful protests at sen­si­tive sites, includ­ing Britain’s nuclear bases.

Lavinia Cross­ley, Tan­sy New­man Turn­er and Emma Bate­man, all part of a group call­ing them­selves the ‘Faslane 365 Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime Inves­ti­ga­tion and Pre­ven­tion Team’, went into the base to find evi­dence on the rules of engage­ment, poli­cies and pro­ce­dures for the deploy­ment, tar­get­ing and use of nuclear weapons and to dis­cov­er what infor­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed to per­son­nel about the legal, safe­ty and secu­ri­ty impli­ca­tions of their work on Tri­dent. Their action kicks off the last month of the Faslane 365 year-long block­ade, in which almost 1000 peo­ple from all over the world have been arrest­ed.

In car­ry­ing the non­vi­o­lent resis­tance to the ille­gal deploy­ment and renew­al of Tri­dent into the sub­ma­rine base itself, the women took this action because they con­sid­er that the deploy­ment of Tri­dent con­sti­tutes prepa­ra­tion for a war crime. This vio­la­tion of Scot­tish and inter­na­tion­al law is com­pound­ed by the UK Government’s poli­cies of deploy­ment, con­sti­tut­ing an ever-present threat to use Tri­dent. The women’s action was against both the cur­rent deploy­ment and the government’s stat­ed inten­tion to replace the cur­rent Tri­dent-car­ry­ing Van­guard-class sub­marines with new bal­lis­tic mis­sile sub­marines, in breach of the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty (NPT), of which Britain is a Par­ty.

“Nuclear weapons are immoral and ille­gal,” said Lavinia Cross­ley (22) from Brad­ford. “I feel I have to act because if I do not, who will? The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to cov­er up the ille­gal­i­ty of these weapons and instead pre­tend that we are the crim­i­nals.”

Emma Bate­man (40), from Leices­ter, said, “It is ridicu­lous to threat­en Iran with sanc­tions for pos­si­bly want­i­ng nuclear weapons when we have actu­al WMD here and ready to be used.”

Tan­sy New­man Turn­er (21), also from Leices­ter, said, “Nuclear weapons are not much use against ter­ror­ism and this leg­is­la­tion is an admis­sion that Faslane is a tar­get for ter­ror­ists, thus putting us in more dan­ger. Nuclear weapons pose a threat and dan­ger to us, not a pro­tec­tion or deter­rent.”

The “Faslane 365 Block­ade” start­ed on Octo­ber 1, 2006. Thou­sands have par­tic­i­pat­ed and more than 930 peo­ple have been arrest­ed. On Octo­ber 1st there will be a cel­e­bra­to­ry “Big Block­ade’ involv­ing all the blockad­ing groups that have par­tic­i­pat­ed through­out the year.

See www.faslane365.org for pho­tographs and fur­ther infor­ma­tion.

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At 11.00a.m. today, 3 more peace pro­test­ers breached secu­ri­ty at the North gate of the Faslane nuclear sub­ma­rine base, enter­ing on bicy­cles. This sec­ond team from the ‘Faslane 365 Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime Inves­ti­ga­tion and Pre­ven­tion Team’ fol­lows the ear­li­er arrest of 3 women inside the base. It is under­stood that they are being charged under the Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA). The total num­ber of Scot­tish SOCRAP arrests is now 6.

Like the 3 ear­li­er Faslane 365 activists, arrest­ed at around 4.30 a.m. this morn­ing after climb­ing the high secu­ri­ty fences, Janet Fen­ton, Ang­ie Zel­ter and Wolf Konows­ki entered the Faslane base to find evi­dence on the rules of engage­ment, poli­cies and pro­ce­dures for the deploy­ment, tar­get­ing and use of nuclear weapons and to dis­cov­er what infor­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed to per­son­nel about the legal, safe­ty and secu­ri­ty impli­ca­tions of their work on Tri­dent.

Janet Fen­ton (60) from Edin­burgh said, “The Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act does not have back­ing in Scot­land. It is there to stop peo­ple expos­ing the real law-break­ing of the UK Gov­ern­ment. The deploy­ment of Tri­dent is ille­gal accord­ing to the World Court.”

Ang­ie Zel­ter (56) from Nor­folk said, “The law must not be used to pro­tect ille­gal­i­ties. SOCAP is polit­i­cal leg­is­la­tion that makes it a crim­i­nal offence for pro­test­ers to go into Faslane when it is our legal, civ­il and moral duty to uphold the law by expos­ing and pre­vent­ing prepa­ra­tions for mass mur­der.”

Wolf Konows­ki (43) from Ger­many, added, “For evil to tri­umph it is only nec­es­sary for good peo­ple to do noth­ing.”

Note for edi­tors:
The “Faslane 365 Block­ade” start­ed on Octo­ber 1, 2006. Thou­sands have par­tic­i­pat­ed and more than 930 peo­ple have been arrest­ed. On Octo­ber 1st there will be a cel­e­bra­to­ry “Big Block­ade’ involv­ing all the blockad­ing groups that have par­tic­i­pat­ed through­out the year.

The Seri­ous Organ­ised Crime and Police Act (SOCAP) became law in 2005, and amend­ed by the Ter­ror­ism Act 2006. Under the rubric of defend­ing against ter­ror­ism, SOCAP makes it a crim­i­nal offence to “tres­pass” on cer­tain areas of land, includ­ing mil­i­tary facil­i­ties, such as the Tri­dent nuclear weapons base at Faslane

The Unit­ed King­dom cur­rent­ly deploys up to 200 nuclear war­heads on US Tri­dent mis­siles, car­ried on nuclear sub­marines based at the Faslane Naval Base in Scot­land. The major­i­ty of war­heads are 100 kilo­tonnes, which is more than 8 times big­ger than the bombs used on Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki in 1945. The UK is fac­ing a high­ly con­tro­ver­sial deci­sion on whether to get the next gen­er­a­tion of Tri­dent nuclear weapons or move towards gen­uine nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment, as required under the 1970 Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty and sub­se­quent inter­na­tion­al agree­ments, as spec­i­fied by the Inter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice in 1996. Recent opin­ion polls show that 80 per­cent of peo­ple liv­ing in Scot­land (and 55 per­cent in the UK as a whole) are opposed to nuclear weapons and want Tri­dent to be can­celled. On June 14, the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment vot­ed against Tri­dent by 71 votes to 16 (with 39 absten­tions).

See www.faslane365.org for pho­tographs and fur­ther infor­ma­tion.

CONTACT Rebec­ca John­son: 077333 60955
www.faslane365.org