100 arrests so far as 600 actvists block entrances to faslane nuclear weapons base.
600 Shut Down Faslane Nuclear Weapons Base to Mark Year of Protest
Alex Salmond sends pro­tes­tors mes­sage of sup­port
Octo­ber 1, 2007

600 pro­tes­tors from across the UK and Europe shut down road access to the Faslane nuclear weapons base on the Clyde this morn­ing.

At 7am pro­tes­tors non vio­lent­ly block­ad­ed the North­ern gate to the base with their bod­ies. Some have locked and super­glued them­selves togeth­er to make it more dif­fi­cult for them to be removed. At around 8.30am oth­er pro­tes­tors suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed the South Gate. With both gates block­ad­ed there is now no road access to the weapons base, which is home to the UK ’s nuclear weapons-car­ry­ing Tri­dent sub­marines.

By 10.30 am Strath­clyde police had arrest­ed an esti­mat­ed 100 pro­test­ers, but as fast as they are removed more are tak­ing their place.

More pro­tes­tors are expect­ed and block­ades are planned to con­tin­ue through­out the day. Drum­mers, clowns and singers, includ­ing acclaimed folk singer Roy Bai­ley, are enter­tain­ing the pro­test­ers, cre­at­ing a car­ni­val spir­it to the protest.

Politi­cians from across the coun­try will join the demon­stra­tors lat­er this morn­ing, includ­ing six SNP MSP’s (Mem­bers of the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment), an MEP, two Green Par­ty MSPs and at least one Labour MSP (1).

Scot­land’s First Min­is­ter Alex Salmond has issued a state­ment back­ing to the event. He sent his “best wish­es” to the pro­tes­tors and said he “shares” Faslane 365’s “objec­tive of remov­ing nuclear weapons from Scotland’s soil” (2).

Oth­er mes­sages of sup­port have come in from cler­ics includ­ing the Head of the Scot­tish Catholic Church and Bish­op of Read­ing Stephen Cot­terell who said, ‘Our nation is demeaned and com­pro­mised by the pres­ence of these weapons of mass destruc­tion on our shores. The Church of Eng­land and most of the Chris­t­ian church­es in these islands stand unit­ed in call­ing upon our gov­ern­ment to re-think its reliance on nuclear weapons for our secu­ri­ty’. (3)

Today’s Big Block­ade cel­e­brates the last day of the Faslane 365 year of peace­ful blockad­ing. Since Faslane 365’s cam­paign start­ed on Octo­ber 1, 2006, thou­sands of peo­ple have block­ad­ed the base and more than 950 have been arrest­ed. High pro­file par­tic­i­pants have includ­ed 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.

Over the year of the block­ade the nuclear issue has been high on the polit­i­cal agen­da. In Feb­ru­ary 2007 the West­min­ster Par­lia­ment vot­ed for pro­duc­ing anoth­er nuclear weapons sys­tem to replace Tri­dent and tie the UK into hold­ing nuclear weapons for the next fifty years. The vote inspired the largest back­bench revolt since that over the deci­sion to invade Iraq. How­ev­er in a twist to the sto­ry in May 2007 the Scot­tish Nation­al Par­ty was elect­ed on a plat­form that includ­ed ‘kick­ing Tri­dent out of Scot­land ’. Lat­er this month the SNP are hold­ing a sum­mit with civ­il soci­ety groups to dis­cuss how to get rid of the UK ’s nuclear weapons. West­min­ster is vul­ner­a­ble to the strong Scot­tish oppo­si­tion to nuclear weapons (4) as Faslane is the only UK base suit­able for the mas­sive nuclear weapons car­ry­ing Tri­dent sub­marines.

NOTES:

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion on Faslane 365, the Tri­dent deploy­ments and the Big Block­ade, includ­ing back­ground and polit­i­cal con­text on the year long block­ade, see the full Press Brief­ing Pack on the web­site. www.faslane365.org/1oct/press

(1) Politi­cians attend­ing the Big Block­ade will include: Bill Kidd MSP (SNP), Gil Pater­son MSP (SNP), Bob Doris MSP (SNP), Bashir Ahmad MSP (SNP), Jamie Hep­burn MSP (SNP) and San­dra White MSP (SNP), Marlyn Glen MSP (Labour), Robin Harp­er MSP (Green) and Patrick Harvie (Green), as well as Jill Evans MEP (Plaid Cym­ru). For sup­port­ive quotes by these politi­cians vis­it the web­site www.faslane365.org/1oct/press

(2) Full Alex Salmond state­ment: Alex Salmond’s office sent a let­ter on behalf of the First Min­is­ter to the Faslane 365 orga­niz­ers con­vey­ing “his best wish­es for a suc­cess­ful event” and affirm­ing his full sup­port for “respon­si­ble and peace­ful protest against the replace­ment of Tri­dent”. The let­ter fur­ther stat­ed that Mr. Salmond “shares” Faslane 365’s “objec­tive of remov­ing nuclear weapons from Scotland’s soil” and affirmed that “He is com­mit­ted to doing what­ev­er he can to per­suade the UK gov­ern­ment to alter its posi­tion on nuclear weapons.”

(3) State­ments by church lead­ers:
Stephen Cot­trell, Bish­op of Read­ing (Angli­can): ‘I send greet­ings in the name of Jesus Christ, the friend of the poor and the lover of peace. On the night before he died he said these words to his friends: Peace I give you, my own peace I leave with you, not as the world gives peace do I give to you. These words con­tin­ue to chal­lenge the pow­ers and author­i­ties of the world where there is still such mis­placed con­fi­dence in a so called peace that can be secured by a so called deter­rence. But these expen­sive and dev­as­tat­ing­ly destruc­tive weapons can­not bring peace. They only encour­age oth­ers to depend on force. They add to the insta­bil­i­ty of the world. They leech finances away from so many oth­er things that could do so much good. Our nation is demeaned and com­pro­mised by the pres­ence of these weapons of mass destruc­tion on our shores. The Church of Eng­land and most of the Chris­t­ian church­es in these islands stand unit­ed in call­ing upon our gov­ern­ment to re-think its reliance on nuclear weapons for our secu­ri­ty. This is the peace the world gives and it is not work­ing. Let us turn instead to the peace of Christ who bids us turn our swords into ploughshares and our tri­dent sub­marines into hos­pi­tals and schools. And it is my plea­sure to send greet­ings and prayers to those of you who are gath­er­ing at Faslane today as you lament the mad­ness of the world and brave­ly bear wit­ness to the way of last­ing peace’.

Kei­th Patrick Car­di­nal O’Brien, Pres­i­dent, the Bish­ops Con­fer­ence of Scot­land (Catholic): ‘My dear friends gath­ered at Faslane, I wish to assure you that the posi­tion of the Roman Catholic Church with regard to weapons of mass destruc­tion is per­fect­ly clear and has been empha­sised by myself in recent years. The Roman Catholic Church is opposed to weapons of mass destruc­tion and has reg­u­lar­ly spo­ken out against the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the renew­al of the Tri­dent Nuclear Weapons sys­tem. I per­son­al­ly am hap­py to think that in the new polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion in the new Scot­tish Par­lia­ment, where a major­i­ty is opposed to Tri­dent, fur­ther pos­i­tive steps may be tak­en in Scot­land to ensure that the Tri­dent Nuclear Weapons Sys­tem is not renewed. With my kind­est regards and union of prayer

(4) An opin­ion poll car­ried out by ICM for Scot­tish CND on 26–29 Jan­u­ary 2007 found that 73 % of those polled were opposed to the gov­ern­ment spend­ing £50 bil­lion on a replace­ment for Tri­dent. http://www.banthebomb.org/newbombs/poll.htm.

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arrests mount at faslane…coulport also block­ad­ed

at 11.30 anoth­er 43 peo­ple were arrest­ed at the faslane base for non­vi­o­lent­ly blockad­ing the gates — brig­ing the total arrests to around 150. about 450 pro­tes­tors remain blockad­ing the base.

Pro­tes­tors have also suc­cess­ful­ly bloack­ad­ed the roads into The Roy­al Naval Arma­ment Depot (RNAD) at Coul­port, Loch Long — where Tri­dent nuclear mis­siles are stored

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