Join Big Blockade of Faslane Nuclear Base 1st October

Hun­dreds of peace activists will risk arrest on Octo­ber 1st when over a thou­sand peo­ple are expect­ed to join in a “Big Block­ade” of Faslane Naval Base. This will be the cul­mi­na­tion of the Faslane 365 year of actions against Tri­dent, Britain’s weapon of mass destruc­tion. Peo­ple and groups from all over Britain (and abroad) will use diverse non­vi­o­lent meth­ods to block the entrances to the nuclear base and dis­rupt the ongo­ing deploy­ment of Tri­dent.

As they have done over the past twelve months, the groups and indi­vid­u­als, who will include Mem­bers of the Scot­tish and Euro­pean Par­lia­ments and well-known singers and artists, will high­light the ille­gal­i­ty, inse­cu­ri­ty and waste of resources inher­ent in the deploy­ment and renew­al of Tri­dent. Through­out the day there will be colour­ful, cre­ative and dra­mat­ic actions at the gates, includ­ing many dif­fer­ent kinds of lock-ons and sit-downs.

“This Big Block­ade will be a car­ni­val of resis­tance to cel­e­brate Faslane 365’s achieve­ments in high­light­ing and dis­rupt­ing the ille­gal nuclear deploy­ments over the year,” said Dr Rebec­ca John­son from the Faslane 365 Steer­ing Group. “We will join togeth­er to mark the end of this year’s cam­paign­ing, and to make clear our deter­mi­na­tion to keep up pres­sure on the Scot­tish and UK gov­ern­ments to get rid of Tri­dent and to take the lead in mov­ing the world towards the total elim­i­na­tion of nuclear weapons, in accor­dance with the Nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty and the wish­es of the major­i­ty.”

As diverse groups of activists block­ade the gates, folk leg­ends Leon Rossel­son and Seize the Day will be pro­vid­ing music, and the renowned Roy Bai­ley and David Fer­rard will per­form songs from a forth­com­ing album about the Iraq War. A twelve-mem­ber choir will sing the ora­to­rio Tri­dent — A British War Crime, by Camil­la Can­can­ta­ta, first per­formed at the Edin­burgh High Court in 2005. The Rev. Kathy Gal­loway, leader of the Iona Com­mu­ni­ty, will cel­e­brate a com­mu­nion ser­vice at 10am at the North Gate with Cler­gy Action and Chris­t­ian CND. Sev­er­al Mem­bers of the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment, includ­ing Marlyn Glen (Labour), Robin Harp­er (Green) and Patrick Harvie (Green), as well as Jill Evans MEP (Plaid Cym­ru) have con­firmed their par­tic­i­pa­tion and will be avail­able for inter­views.

Since Faslane 365 start­ed on Octo­ber 1, 2006, thou­sands have par­tic­i­pat­ed and more than 950 peo­ple have been arrest­ed. Par­tic­i­pants have includ­ed elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Scot­tish, UK and Euro­pean Par­lia­ments and local coun­cils, Friends of the Earth, Green­peace, Bud­dhists, Chris­tians, ‘Uni­ty!’ union of asy­lum seek­ers, artists, writ­ers, aca­d­e­mics, stu­dents from the UK, Europe and Japan, atom­ic bomb sur­vivors from Nagasa­ki, teach­ers, lawyers, health pro­fes­sion­als and pen­sion­ers. Spe­cif­ic groups have come from many regions of Scot­land, Eng­land and Wales and from eleven oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries, as well as Japan and the Unit­ed States. Promi­nent par­tic­i­pants includ­ed the Bish­op of Read­ing Stephen Cot­terell, for­mer UN Assis­tant Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Prof Sir Richard Jol­ly, Nobel Peace Lau­re­ate Mairead Maguire, Adri­an Mitchell, A.L.Kennedy, actor Roger Lloyd Pack and singer-song­writer Bil­ly Bragg.

NVDA train­ings and acco­mo­da­tion will be Sun­day after­noon and evening in Glas­gow. Coach­es leave from Edin­burgh at 4:30 am and Glas­gow at 5:30am
Mon­day. For details and to book see www.faslane365.org/1Oct

For fur­ther back­ground infor­ma­tion on Tri­dent, a sum­ma­ry of the polit­i­cal con­text of the cam­paign, and a selec­tion of pho­tos from the year­long block­ade see the full Press Brief­ing Pack on the web­site. www.faslane365.org/1oct/press

Con­tacts: 0845 45 88 365 / 07733 360955 / 07768 312 676
info@www.faslane365.org
http://www.faslane365.org