Resistance to ‘Factory of Death’ continues

On Mon­day sev­er­al actions took place against the gov­ern­men­t’s nuclear weapons and their plans to devel­op new ones. The focus was AWE Alder­mas­ton, the mil­i­tary base near Read­ing where these weapons are devel­oped and main­tained.

On Mon­day sev­er­al actions took place against the gov­ern­men­t’s nuclear weapons and their plans to devel­op new ones. The focus was AWE Alder­mas­ton, the mil­i­tary base near Read­ing where these weapons are devel­oped and main­tained.

Activists from Tri­dent Ploughshares had been hold­ing an “Alder­mas­ton Sum­mer Gath­er­ing” for sev­er­al days shar­ing infor­ma­tion and leaflet­ting near­by vil­lages. Co-incid­ing with this, folks from the Catholic Work­er move­ment were hold­ing a “Faith and Resis­tance” retreat in Oxford cel­e­brat­ing the 30th anniver­sary of the first Ploughshares action.

As the day began around twen­ty TP folks block­ad­ed one of the main gates into the base, includ­ing four who “locked-on” with arm tubes. They left with­out any arrests after suc­cess­ful­ly blockad­ing for two hours.

Soon after­wards, 3 of the Catholic Work­ers cut through the perime­ter fence and broke into the base, “open­ing it for dis­ar­ma­ment”, while oth­ers car­ried out a vig­il at the gates of the base. They were arrest­ed, held until evening, charged with crim­i­nal dam­age, and may also face SOCPA charges.