Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston demo — 24th March & byelaw challenge

12 noon East­er Mon­day — 24th March
Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Alder­mas­ton

We invite you to par­tic­i­pate in a live­ly demon­stra­tion against the devel­op­ment of nuclear weapons at Alder­mas­ton and to cel­e­brate 50 years of anti-nuclear protest in Britain.

This East­er marks the 50th anniver­sary of the first march to the Atom­ic Weapons Estab­lish­ment Alder­mas­ton — the heart of Britain’s nuclear weapons pro­gramme. We need you — and your friends, col­leagues, com­mu­ni­ties, and net­works — to sur­round the base and cre­ate a colour­ful, effec­tive, and mas­sive demon­stra­tion.

With par­lia­ment vot­ing in March 2007 for a new fleet of nuclear armed sub­marines, and with the con­struc­tion of facil­i­ties for a new gen­er­a­tion of nuclear war­heads already under­way at Alder­mas­ton, it’s time to send a clear mes­sage to the gov­ern­ment that 50 years is enough!

While cel­e­brat­ing five decades of sus­tained cam­paign­ing against nuclear weapons, the empha­sis will be on embrac­ing the future, push­ing for dis­ar­ma­ment and work­ing togeth­er to build a broad move­ment that grows from strength to strength.

The event will be live­ly, with each gate at the site being linked to a dif­fer­ent era — with appro­pri­ate dec­o­ra­tion and enter­tain­ment — and is being organ­ised by CND nation­al and region­al groups and peo­ple from the wider anti-nuclear, peace and anti-war move­ments. If you would like to get involved in organ­is­ing for this event in your area, please get in touch.

Groups can come dressed as they want, could be in theme with the gates, or as weapons inspec­tors, or cam­paign­ers from the future, or as nuclear bombs, or flow­ers!

The pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less! The event will be organ­ised using the ’ Block’ struc­ture so that your group comes ready to take up as much space around the site as pos­si­ble. We have a web­site for your ‘Block’ to add their details and how much space they can take up along the fence line.

For Exam­ple, East­ern Block, dress­ing as nuclear cow­boys can take up 200 meters of fence line using 2 ban­ners 100 peo­ple and a radioac­tive horse prop!

That’s just an exam­ple.

We need to start mobil­is­ing now and get our coach­es booked and the seats full! It will take 5,000 peo­ple to sur­round Alder­mas­ton AWE. The devel­op­ments at Alder­mas­ton are well on their way, we need to move our cam­paign­ing to the next stage, build an even stronger move­ment and stop the devel­op­ment of new nuclear weapons. THE BOMB STOPS HERE!

http://www.cnduk.org/aldermaston/

====================================

Alder­mas­ton byelaws — judi­cial review update

On 1 Feb­ru­ary 2008 Alder­mas­ton Wom­en’s Peace Camp(aign) took their Judi­cial Review of the Alder­mas­ton Byelaws 2007 to the High Court in Lon­don. Lord Jus­tice Mau­rice Kay and Mr Jus­tice Walk­er decid­ed to hear the case against the Sec­re­tary of State for Defence in full.

The case — a judi­cial review of the Min­istry of Defence’s (MoD) deci­sion to intro­duce byelaws which deny the women’s peace camp their right to free­dom of assem­bly — was brought by Pub­lic Inter­est Lawyers on behalf of a mem­ber of the Alder­mas­ton Women’s Peace Camp (AWPC).

At the High Court, argu­ments from the claimant and defen­dant were com­plet­ed by the end of the day and the Jus­tices are expect­ed to give their writ­ten judg­ment with­in the next fort­night.

After the hear­ing a spokes­woman from AWPC said “We feel that the byelaws are vague, that they under­mine the spe­cif­ic rights of assem­bly and asso­ci­a­tion and that, in imple­men­ta­tion, they will be applied in a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry man­ner against camp women by the Min­istry of Defence Police”.

To date ten women have been arrest­ed under the Alder­mas­ton Byelaws 2007. All cas­es have been dropped after pre-tri­al review stage.

In relat­ed news, the camp announced today that it will be host­ing one of the gates for the Alder­mas­ton march 50th anniver­sary events this East­er. Called by CND, the 24 March event will be a “live­ly demon­stra­tion against the devel­op­ment of nuclear weapons at Alder­mas­ton and a cel­e­bra­tion of 50 years of anti-nuclear protest in Britain.”

On East­er Mon­day AWPC will take up res­i­dence at their his­toric home — Fal­con­gate — and invite all women to join them. See link below for details. Gen­er­al details of the East­er event at http://www.cnduk.org/aldermaston/

—
For back­ground on the judi­cial review, see: http://www.aldermaston.net/news/212 and http://www.aldermaston.net/news/183

info@aldermaston.net
http://aldermaston.net/falcongate08.php