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Court victory stops arms sales to Saudi Arabia

In a historic judgment, the Court of Appeal ruled that UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen are UNLAWFUL.

Campaign Against Arms Trade were successful in proving their case that the government had failed to properly assess whether there have been breaches of International Humanitarian Law via their licensing of arms exports to Saudi Arabia.

The government now has to stop issuing new arms exports licences and it has since said it will do so – see here.

It’s shocking that it took a court case for the licences to stop, rather than the government making that decision on moral grounds. When schools, hospitals, weddings, and funerals have been bombed, the government should have stopped all weapons sales to the Saudi regime.

This is a huge victory for our movement but we must keep the pressure up. All MPs to know need to know about this ruling, to keep building the pressure to stop these sales once and for all. Please email your MP today: caat.org.uk/unlawful.

You can read about the verdict here and CAAT’s thoughts on it here. What a victory! Thank you to all those who contributed to this in any way.

Join us for a tour of the sinister side of London

Our walking tour of arms companies is this Saturday and we hope you will join us to find out about the arms companies in our midst. We will visit 6 arms companies, all of who are likely to be at the DSEI arms fair in September. Come along to learn which company made bombs that killed civilians in Yemen and who said that ‘weapons sales encourage peace’.

Join us on July 6^th at 2pm – we’re meeting outside the Victoria Palace theatre. There are still a few places available so do sign up for your free place here and you can also see details on the Facebook event.

Join East London Against Arms Fair for a protest at the venue of DSEI

Join East London Against Arms Fair on Saturday July 13^th at 2.30pm for a musical Protest at the west entrance of the ExCeL centre, where DSEI will take place. Nearest tube: Custom House DLR. More details are on their website.

Next London CAAT meeting, July 16^th

Join us at our next meeting on Tuesday July 16^th at 6.30pm in the CAAT office in Finsbury Park and the address is Unit 4, 5-7 Wells Terrace, N4 3JU. After our walking tour, we will decide what to do next in the run up to DSEI. All welcome so come get involved!

Learn about the destructive companies in our midst

With the DSEI arms fair coming up in September, we thought it would be a good time to revitalise our walking tours of arms companies in London. This will be an interesting, informative two hour walk where you can learn more about the arms companies that exist in London and the death and destruction they are responsible for. This will be a fascinating way to learn about some of the companies that will be exhibiting at DSEI and hopefully inspire you to take action against them and/or get involved in the resistance to DSEI (see below for more details on that).

We will be visiting some of the world’s largest and most destructive arms companies, highlighting their evil deeds, devastating impact on innocent civilians globally, exposing their corruption and close ties with governments and showing how some of these companies are complicit in the Yemeni war and resultant humanitarian crisis. Join us on July 6^th at 2pm – we’re meeting outside the Victoria Palace theatre. Please sign up for your free place here and you can also see details on the Facebook event.

Get involved with the Stop DSEI campaign

Come to the next Stop the Arms Fair meeting on June 15^th. This meeting will pin down plans to tackle the arms fair that is looming on the horizon in September and get more people involved. There are various plans already regarding themed days of action in the run up to the fair, e.g. Stop Arming Israel and Climate Justice, so you can focus on one area if you want. The meeting is at 12.30pm at St Hilda’s East Community Centre and lunch will be provided. See here for more details.

Weak justifications from the BAE Chair at their AGM

Last month, we attended the BAE AGM at their HQ in Farnborough. It was a disturbing spectacle where the Chair Roger Carr claimed they were an ethical business only interested in peace. Among some other ludicrous claims and defences of their arms sales, he said his firm’s role was to “provide defence equipment that ultimately encourages peace”, that they are helping peacekeeping rather than encouraging warfare and that they are in pursuit of peace and prosperity for all. He also praised their ethics and belief in doing the right thing and that they are proud because they think it is one of the world’s great companies doing amazing things. His claim that “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a stabiliser in a very uncertain world” was met with derision. And as for the sign boasting that they are improving children protection, there are simply no words to describe the hypocrisy of this.

CAAT supporters again dominated the Q&A session, mostly focussing on the Yemeni war. Questions were asked on behalf of the Yemeni journalist Ahmad Algohbary about whether they would stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia to save the Yemeni people or if they would continue to build their economy on the killing of innocents. He was also challenged by a British-Yemeni lawyer, saying BAE blindly sell bombs to the Saudis and fail to do any due diligence. All in all, Roger was given an uncomfortable AGM/morning (as he is at every AGM) and was left in no doubt about the strength of feeling against his company’s work. You can read the Morning Star’s report on the AGM here.

Next London CAAT meeting, June 18^th

Join us at our next meeting on Tuesday June 18^th at 6.30pm in the CAAT office in Finsbury Park and the address is Unit 4, 5-7 Wells Terrace, N4 3JU. As always, we will be making plans to tackle the elements of the arms trade that exist in our city. All welcome so come get involved!

Tell the Bahraini King he is not welcome here, May 11^th

The Bahraini King is once again attending the Royal Windsor Horse Show and once again the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) will be protesting against his presence. The King and the Bahraini regime have a horrific human rights record and the UK is complicit in this through it’s arms sales to the regime. Since the Arab Spring uprising in 2011, the UK has sold £103m of arms to the Bahraini military. Family members of the Director of BIRD have been have been targeted because of protests against the King’s visits.

Please join BIRD this Saturday to protest against the Show’s sponsorship by Bahrain’s dictatorship. They will be departing for the show at 10am from Paddington Station. If you are able to attend, please send an email to [email protected]. If you are making your own way there, the Royal Windsor Horse Show is taking place in the grounds of Windsor Castle. Information on how to reach the event can be found here.

CAMPAIGN WIN!! – BAE Systems dropped as sponsor of the Festival of Making

In a wonderfully fast victory for our movement, it took two days for the Festival of Making to drop BAE as their sponsor. Art Not Arms again the led the way, targeting the festival on Twitter to point out the massive harm BAE’s business causes globally and launching a petition. The festival capitulated quickly and announced that the Festival was no longer receiving support from BAE. After getting BAE dropped as the sponsor of the Great Exhibition of the North, we are closing down the number of spaces where BAE can whitewash the true nature of their business. Unfortunately, they are still sponsors of Pride in Surrey and Pride Blackpool – you can sign the petitions about those sponsorship deals here and here.

Our walking tour of arms companies

We are still finalizing our plans for our walking tour around some of the arms companies that will be exhibiting at the DSEI arms fair but we have now chosen July 6^th as the date for it. It will be an interesting and informative walk around some of the more heinous companies we have in our midst and will hopefully fire you up to take action at DSEI. We will send final details in next month’s bulletin.

Legal challenge to Saudi arms sales

On April 9-11^th, CAAT will be bringing an appeal to court regarding the legality of the government’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia. A High Court ruling in July 2017 rejected CAAT’s case that the government’s issuing of export licences to Saudi Arabia for military equipment contravened the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria. You can read more about the case here. As the war on Yemen enters it’s fifth year, we need to keep the pressure. Please sign and share the petition to stop the arms sales here.

In the week that Jeremy Hunt ludicrously said that ending the UK’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE would be “morally bankrupt”, it is more important than ever we to continue to tell the government to stop these heinous arms sales. It was great to see the five opposition parties call on the Foreign Secretary to Stop Arming Saudi. The UK’s complicity in the devastation wreaked on Yemen is shocking and immoral and it must be challenged every step of the way.

A walking tour of arms companies

We have been discussing what action we can take in the run up to the DSEI arms fair and we will be doing a walking tour around some of the arms companies in our city. We will do a whistle-stop tour of six arms companies, including old ‘favourites’ such as BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin. It will be a fun way of highlighting the presence of these companies in our city and linking them to DSEI. We are planning to do it on May 25^th so keep an eye out for future announcements

Next London CAAT meeting, April 16^th

At our next meeting, we will continue to plan our walking tour and look at other ways to resist DSEI. Do join us! We will be meeting on Tuesday April 16^th at 6.30pm in the CAAT office in Finsbury Park and the address is Unit 4, 5-7 Wells Terrace, N4 3JU.

It Starts Here conference, March 9-10^th

Every two years, the world’s largest arms fair rolls into East London. Every two years, we resist this horrendous event with passionate and inventive protests. Come along on March 9-10^th to build on the amazing resistance to the last DSEI. See here for a report of the brilliant ways people obstructed the fair in 2017.

DSEI brings together arms companies with military delegations from countries, including those from human rights abusing regimes and countries involved in conflict. In 2017, nine authoritarian regimes were invited to attend (Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Vietnam) and six were identified by our own government as ‘human rights priority countries’ (Bahrain, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). You can read more about DSEI here.

On these days, we will skillshare and learn, link up and discuss. There will be workshops, panels and space to meet people and build the strength of the resistance. It will be a warm and friendly place where you can meet/join migrant solidarity groups, anti-nuclear crews, LGBTQIA+ folk and Palestine solidarity activists among others and work on how best to resist DSEI.

You can get your ticket here and there are more details on the Facebook event, including the programme. With a mass movement to oppose DSEI, we can shut it down.

Yemeni crisis meeting, March 12^th

Join North London Stop the War for a free talk on British arms and Saudi Arabia. With the UK supplying £4.7bn of weapons to the Saudi regime, they are complicit in the devastation wreaked on Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition. The UN estimates 14 million people in Yemen are on the brink of starvation due to the war. You can get tickets here.

Next London CAAT meeting, March 19^th

We had a fantastic meeting last month where we had a deep dive into DSEI and what we as London CAAT might do to resist it. We came up with some great ideas so at our next meeting we will try to pin down some concrete plans. Do join us! We will be meeting on Tuesday March 19^th at 6.30pm in the CAAT office in Finsbury Park and the address is Unit 4, 5-7 Wells Terrace, N4 3JU.