19/06/2008
Today a group of 5 Trident Ploughshares activists blockaded the main gate of Faslane nuclear submarine base for one and a half hours. The roadway was closed from 6.40am until 7.45am, and unable to fully reopen until 8.15am. Traffic was turned away and had to find an alternative entrance.
One of the activists, Janet Fenton, said “We chose today because it is one year since the Scottish government voted NOT to support Gordon Brown’s plan to foist illegal, immoral and unaffordable nuclear weapons on Scotland for another 50 years. Along with the majority of people in Scotland, we don’t want them here or anywhere else.”
The five were cautioned by MDP police at 7am as they lay across the roadway to the North gate, locked-on using tubes and clips. A specialist cutting team had to be called out to remove the activists individually who had their arms in tubes of steel, plastic and concrete. They were arrested for Breach of the Peace and taken for processing inside the base.
See video footage at http://youtube.com/watch?v=tGAHAUHMwjo
The protesters said that they were at the North Gate peacefully acting to block the entrance to the nuclear submarine base to play their part as citizens of the world in stopping the deployment of nuclear weapons:
* to remind the UK Government of their obligations;
* to support the politicians and others who are willing to work to get rid of nuclear weapons;
* and to make it clear that matters of conscience are the responsibility of all concerned people, and can never be reserved.
Another activist said, “By using our hands and our bodies in this way, without causing harm to others, we hope that we can make it easy to see how it is the simple actions of ordinary people that are needed to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction.”