‘Arms Sales to Dictators, Displacement, and Militarised Borders’ film launch
In April, we held a launch event for our film ‘Arms Sales to Dictators, Displacement, and Militarised Borders’. The film covers UK government and the UK arms industry’s involvement in and around the Syrian Civil war, arms sales to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose border guards shoot at and kill Syrians trying to flee, and finally the UK’s support of a militarised borders policy in Lebanon and Jordan. We had a fascinating panel discussion with illuminating and wide-ranging contributions from Matt Broomfield and Les Levidow from Peace in Kurdistan Campaign for a political solution of the Kurdish Question – big thanks go to them. You can watch the panel event here and watch the film itself here. Thank you again to Rainbow Collective for making the film.
Taking our petition about BAE Systems advertising on the Tube to City Hall
We have been running a campaign to get the advert for the heinous arms company BAE Systems removed from Westminster tube station. A company that is heavily complicit in the war on Yemen has no place on the underground. This advert is clearly directed at politicians and is just propaganda for BAE’s dangerous wares. London Underground should not be taking money from arms dealers for advertising to promote their deadly products.
BAE Systems has been a major weapons supplier to the Saudi-led coalition fighting a deadly civil war in Yemen, selling over £25 billion during the 8 years of the conflict. The war has seen over 377,000 dead as a result of the conflict, including more than 8,000 civilian casualties of the bombing. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain are key parts of this coalition.
On Wednesday June 21st at 4pm we will be handing the petition into City Hall. This is therefore your last chance to sign the petition and show the strength of feeling against the fact that BAE are allowed to have such a prime piece of advertising space so close to Parliament. The petition can be found here. You can also join us for the hand in if you want – please email londoncaat at riseup.net and we can confirm where we will meet.