A Dozen people arrested at AWE Aldermaston Blockade

12.11.2007
About 50 peo­ple went down to AWE Alder­mas­ton, Berk­shire, very ear­ly this morn­ing to block­ade the on-going con­struc­tion of the Ori­on laser, designed to help build the next gen­er­a­tion of UK nuclear war heads.

The 50 activists were split in four dif­fer­ent block­ades at var­i­ous strate­gic points to attempt to stop all con­struc­tion traf­fic — includ­ing a block­ade of Burgfield, the near­by fac­to­ry where the war­heads are put togeth­er (and then shipped to Coulport/Faslane in Scot­land)

The block­aders used a vari­ety of large con­crete lock-ons, lock on tubes and super glue and while they stopped short of block­ing the base entire­ly, they man­aged to sev­er­ly dis­rupt the con­struc­tion traf­fic for 2 and half hours.
4 arrests at AWE Burgh­field, includ­ing a 77-year old man, after a 2‑hour lock-on from sun­rise, with choir and vio­lin accom­pa­ni­ment, on a chilly but beau­ti­ful Mon­day morn­ing,

13 arrests in total (9 at Alder­mas­ton, near the two main con­struc­tion gates — Tadley gate and Home Office gate) — every­one released in the after­noon, after 5–6 hours in cus­tody. Some cau­tioned, some charged with obstruc­tion of the high­way. About 70–80 peo­ple joined the protests in total, trav­el­ling from as far afield as York­shire, Wales, Ply­mouth, Southamp­ton, Essex, Lon­don, Cam­bridge, Sal­is­bury…

Spe­cial thanks to New­bury Friends for your con­tin­ued sup­port.

More detailed action report

14.11.2007 14:55
13 Arrests at Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Block­ades

Around 70–80 anti-nuclear cam­paign­ers took part in the ‘Block the Builders’ direct action against the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment (AWE) facil­i­ties at Alder­mas­ton and Burgh­field in Berk­shire dur­ing the morn­ing rush hour on Mon­day 12 Novem­ber. There were thir­teen arrests in total, with traf­fic around the base severe­ly dis­rupt­ed for around two and a half hours.

At Alder­mas­ton, pro­test­ers sought to dis­rupt the con­struc­tion of new mul­ti-bil­lion pound state-of-the-art facil­i­ties at the site, includ­ing the Ori­on laser. Cam­paign­ers say the new facil­i­ties will be used to devel­op new weapons of mass destruc­tion, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Unit­ed States. This, they say, breach­es the nuclear Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty, to which both the UK and the US are sig­na­to­ries.

There were three sep­a­rate human block­ades at Alder­mas­ton, on the A340 close to Tadley Gate and Home Office Gate respec­tive­ly. They were designed to block the entry of con­struc­tion vehi­cles into the facil­i­ty. Con­crete-filled wheel­ie bins, lock-on tubes made from con­crete and oth­er mate­ri­als, and super­glue were used. 9 peo­ple were arrest­ed for obstruc­tion of the high­way and tak­en to New­bury Police Sta­tion, includ­ing some young peo­ple and mem­bers of the Alder­mas­ton Women’s Peace Camp.

At Burgh­field, on the out­skirts of Read­ing — where the exist­ing Tri­dent war­heads are assem­bled, before being sent by road con­voy back to the arma­ments depot at Coul­port on the west coast of Scot­land — four activists chained them­selves togeth­er using arm lock-on tubes to block off a pri­vate road, off the Burgh­field Road, which leads to the main entrance to the facil­i­ty. They had to wait near­ly 2 hours for the cut­ting team to arrive. The block­ade was accom­pa­nied by a four-per­son choir from Turn­ing the Tide singing protest songs, and a vio­lin­ist. All four block­aders were arrest­ed for obstruc­tion of the high­way and tak­en first to AWE Alder­mas­ton and even­tu­al­ly to New­bury Police Sta­tion. They includ­ed a 77-year-old man and mem­bers of Tri­dent Ploughshares.

All those arrest­ed were held in the cus­tody of Thames Val­ley Police for around six hours, before being either cau­tioned or charged with obstruc­tion of the high­way. They were then released, with sup­port­ers wait­ing for them at the police sta­tion.

Peo­ple had trav­elled from as far afield as York­shire, Wales, Devon, Wilt­shire, Southamp­ton, Essex, Kent, Northants, Cam­bridge and Lon­don to join the protests. Oth­er groups rep­re­sent­ed on the day includ­ed Men­with Hill Peace Camp, Sal­is­bury and Kent CND, the Green Par­ty and Read­ing Peace Group.

A spokesper­son from Block the Builders said, “We are liv­ing in dan­ger­ous times, large­ly due to the inter­ven­tion­ist for­eign poli­cies of the Unit­ed States and Britain. What we urgent­ly need is a UN Nuclear Weapons Con­ven­tion ban­ning all nuclear weapons. What busi­ness do we in the West have threat­en­ing mil­i­tary strikes on Iran for its ura­ni­um enrich­ment pro­gramme, whilst at the same spend­ing bil­lions of pounds upgrad­ing our nuclear weapons facil­i­ties right here in the UK? The hypocrisy is plain to see. Would we not be bet­ter off spend­ing the mon­ey on health­care, edu­ca­tion, tack­ling pover­ty and car­ing for the envi­ron­ment?”

Arti­cles relat­ing to Mon­day’s action:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/11/385357.html?c=on
http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=5608
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7090404.stm
http://greenreading.blogspot.com/2007/11/brave-aldermaston-protestors-survive.html

Oth­er links:

http://www.blockthebuilders.org.uk
http://www.cnduk.org/
http://www.aldermaston.net/
http://www.tridentploughshares.org/index.php3
http://www.faslane365.org/
http://www.banthebomb.org/blog/index.php
http://nuclearawarenessgroup.org.uk/
http://www.quaker.org.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=89989