Say no to the annual arms dealer dinner!
On January 28th the UK arms trade will hold its annual fancy black tie dinner in central London. This dinner will bring together arms dealers, MPs and military personnel to schmooze, swill champagne, and feast on expensive food. That year on year they gather to celebrate their deadly business is immoral and callous. With BAE Systems as one of the sponsors, a company that is the main UK company involved in the production of F-35 aircraft that are used to bomb Gaza, this event needs to be opposed.
The companies at this dinner have also sold military equipment to the Saudi-led coalition for the war that has devastated Yemen, and facilitated oppression in Bahrain. These companies cause so much death, destruction and misery around the world.
This celebration of their heinous business cannot be allowed to go ahead unopposed. Bring your placards, noise and passion to oppose this horrendous event. More details can be found here. The venue is not something they announce publicly so keep checking this page for details of the location.
We had a busy year!
We took on the evils of the arms trade in a variety of ways this year – please see below for a flavour of what we got up to.
We started the year with a lively protest against the arms dealer dinner (see above for this year’s protest) and the feeling was particularly strong as Israel was three months into it’s brutal bombardment of Gaza and as their genocide continues, we expect the same again this year.
In March, we held a vigil outside Downing Street to mark the anniversary of the start of the war on Yemen, stand in solidarity with the people of the country and commemorate all the lives unnecessarily lost in this brutal war. We heard from Mayer Wakefield from Stop the War, Andrew Feinstein from Shadow World Investigations, Insiya Raja from Bahraini Institute for Rights and Democracy, and the Yemeni freelance journalist Ahmad Algohbary. You can hear Ahmad Algohbary’s message below
Next up was a walking tour of some the arms companies complicit in Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population. We visited Boeing, BAE Systems and L3 Harris and outlined the ways they are involved in Israel’s brutal war on Gaza.
We held a protest outside the Counter Terror Expo, an event that pushes a counter-terrorism narrative that entrenches militarised borders and leads to more arms sales, and actually got invited inside to have a look – read more about that here.
We ended the year with a loud protest outside L3Harris, a company that is fully complicit in Israel’s war on Gaza through it’s production of the integrated core processor, the main computer in the F-35. There were chants, leaflets and Palestinian poetry. It was a sobering end to a year of obscene violence against Palestinians.
So a busy year for London CAAT and we will continue to challenge the arms trade this year. Thank you to anyone who came to meetings, attended demos or supported us in any way.