“TRIDENT two” protester Angie Zelter was arrested again yesterday for blocking the roadway at the site of the world’s largest arms trade fair.
Zelter, 66, from Wales, made headlines when she was detained along with retired teacher Brian Quail for similar action near Faslane in July.
The Trident Ploughshares member was arrested outside the ExCeL Centre in London, which will host the Defence & Security Equipment International event next week.
The action, which halted traffic carrying materials for the conference, saw Zelter picked up alongside five other people.
They include 63-year-old Margaret Bremner, from Portobello in Edinburgh, and Douglas Shaw, 67, from Biggar in South Lanarkshire.
The others were Randel Harford, 27, from Bristol, 66-year-old Barbara Cookson, of Liverpool, and Londoner Genny Scherel, 71.
Bremner said: “The sale of arms shows that the value of money is being put before people’s lives. We must campaign for dignity, respect, peace and justice in our world.”
The six blocked the roadway for 90 minutes using “lock-on” tubes that made them difficult for the police to move.
Trident Ploughshares is part of the Stop the Arms Fair campaign, which is co-ordinating a range of actions against the event.
The group aims to “highlight the involvement of the world’s biggest arms manufacturers in production, operation and maintenance of Britain’s nuclear weapons, and the disproportionate influence this gives them over government policy, and the ability to lobby the Government to promote their military products abroad”. It claims this leads to UK-made weaponry being sold to “some of the world’s most oppressive regimes”.
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