Decommissioners update and protest (updated again)

bristol | peace | feature

Tuesday October 27, 2009 11:37

by imcvol

It's been an interesting few days for The Decommissioners. In the past few days there have been brushes with the law, and the prison authorities... and now another protest is coming up...

Bristol ABC wrote last week, that "two of Bristol’s 6 EDO Decommissioners were re-arrested on Saturday at an anti-militarist protest [for breaching bail conditions]"... But the bad news soon became good:

The three were taken to Oldham court on Monday 19th, the prosecution first tried to charge the three with ‘Associating’ with each other. Realising this wasn’t actually one of there bail conditions the charge was changed to ‘communicating’ with each other. Realising there was insufficient evidence to prove the defendants had communicated with each other, the charge was changed to ‘indirect communication’. Once again realising there was no evidence to prove this, a final charge was weighed against them, this was unbelievably ‘likely to break bail conditions’ then all of a sudden the clock struck 13:18 and all charges were dropped because of a time-out. For if your arrested on breach of bail it has to go through the courts within 24 hours...

Decommissioner recorded another victory: "Yesterday two of the defendants in the decommissioning trial, were successful in their appeal of their conviction for offences relating to the 2008 'Carnival Against the Arms Trade'. Both defendants had been arrested in a mass invasion of the EDO MBM/ITT carpark."

It's not all good news though. Bristol ABC again:

Meanwhile word has come in that the remaining Bristol Decommissioner on remand, Elijah (James) Smith, was ghosted out of Lewes prison sometime last week, and its believed taken to Doncaster prison... ‘Ghosting’ of prisoners involves their sudden unannounced movement to another prison, and is an old trick by the state to stop awkward prisoners... getting settled anywhere or communicating their grievances to others.

Supporter has more: "Currently Elijah is back in Lewes prison where he’ll stay until November 5th. Write to him please at: Elijah Smith, VP 7551, HMP Lewes, 1 Brighton Rd, East Susses, BN7 1EA."

You can also provide support by attending the protest this Saturday. Meet opposite the Hippodrome, central Bristol, at 2pm. Peaceman tells us why we should be there:

There are alternatives. The withdrawal from countries and regions we have no right nor reason to be in. The end of support to corrupt, totalitarian and oppressive regimes. The end of sales of military hardware to those same regimes, along with the withdrawal of 'military experts'. Trade and locally-led development not state-sponsored terrorism. The re-tooling and retraining of western factories and workforces to produce socially useful goods and equipment not weapons of mass destruction. Come on Bristol, wake up!