Smash EDO continue anti-death merchant action

McDonald's and banks among those implicated by anti-war group

27 Apr, 2009

By Naomi Loomes [The Argus]

Protesters have drawn up a list of banks and companies they will target during an anti-arms trade protest next week.

Thousands of demonstrators are planning to descend on Brighton and Hove during the May Bank Holiday for what they describe as a “mass street party against, war, greed and militarism”.

The protest was originally planned as part of an ongoing campaign against EDO MBM/ITT, the factory on Home Farm Road in Moulsecoomb, which makes arms components.

But since the G20 events in London, increasing numbers of anarchist and anti-capitalist groups from around Britain have been planning to widen the scope of the demonstration.

This week the group behind the protest, Smash EDO, have published a map of 35 city centre businesses they say have supplied or invested in ITT, including McDonald’s, American Express, BP and Barclays Bank.

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Another G20 policeman in trouble as May Day looms

Human rights watchers on high alert as police prepare for protests in London and Brighton
By Jack Bremer

30 Apr, 2009

The ramifications of the policing of the G20 protest on April 1 continue to reverberate in London with the resignation of a Metropolitan Police officer who posted "inappropriate comments" on a website.

The officer was not named by acting Deputy Commissioner Tom Godwin when he made the announcement today. Nor was the precise nature of the officer's online offence.

But it follows the disciplining or temporary suspension of three other policemen as a result of their behaviour on or around April 1 - one for seeming to strike the newsvendor Ian Tomlinson, who died later the same day; another for striking a woman who was attending a vigil for Tomlinson on April 2; the third, a north London constable called Rob Ward, for using the social networking site Facebook to announce that he planned to use the excuse of the G20 protest to "bash some long-haired hippies".

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Human rights observers are now on high alert for May Day protests planned in London tomorrow, Friday, May 1, and in Brighton on Bank Holiday Monday, May 4.

Demonstrators on May 1 are expected to gather at Clerkenwell Green at midday and then march to Trafalgar Square for a rally at 4.30pm. But there is also talk of a protest group known as the Space Hijackers planning to demonstrate outside the Bank of England - the scene of the attack on Ian Tomlinson - in protest at what they see as Britain's gradual slip into a "surveillance state".

Details of the Brighton gathering on May 4 are less clear. It is advertised by Smash EDO as a "street party against war and greed" but the timing and route of the demonstration and the anticipated numbers are not yet known.

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May Day protests turn ugly as violent clashes erupt on the streets of Brighton

By Daily Mail Reporter

5 May, 2009

A May Day protest descended into violence yesterday as anti-war demonstrators clashed with police in Brighton, where thousands of visitors had flocked to enjoy the bank holiday.

Three police officers were injured after scuffles with mask-wearing activists who organised a march through the city's streets. One man was arrested.

At one point activists climbed up scaffolding onto the roof of a Barclays bank branch and unfurled a banner as part of the protest against an arms factory in the city.

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‘Mayday! Mayday!’ Smash EDO Brighton: anti-war march clashes with police

Josh Jones

4 May, 2009

Hundreds of people from all over the country met in Brighton today to protest against the war, capitalism, and the arms trade. Organised by the Smash EDO movement, which for years has been campaigning against the EDO/ITT weapons factory based in Brighton, the protest started off very peacefully and remained generally positive throughout the day.

Mounted police outside McDonalds

After meeting by the Palace Pier, the protest moved through the centre of Brighton cheering and chanting. Four young anarchists climbed to the top of the Barclays building, where they hung a banner reading “Arms Dealers Out Of Brighton’. Barclays is notorious for being one of the banks most complicit in the international arms trade. The people responsible for the banner were welcomed into the crowd as heroes, and avoided arrest.

After passing peacefully past the Clock tower, down Queens Road and through North Laine, the protest clashed with police on London Road. A heavy police presence blocked part of the road outside McDonalds, and minor scuffles quickly escalated as mounted and riot police forced through crowds to protect the building. A smoke-bomb lit by protesters, combined with a push forward from mounted police, frightened shoppers and nearly split the protest in two.

From then on, the protest became a game of cat-and-mouse - although it was sometimes hard to tell who was the cat and who the mouse. Protesters managed to force back mounted police several times, while police hastily re-grouped around the protest as it moved into residential districts and through Preston Park. However, neither protesters nor police seemed to have a plan as such, and after much walking and a few minor scuffles - including the arrest of one man by riot police - the protest moved back into the town centre.

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