Press Releases & Updates 2010

One of the four, Barbara Dowling painted “This JP Court does not uphold international law” in red paint at the top of the steps in the newly renovated court building. A second, Janet Fenton, painted out the brass plaque outside the front door, changing it from reading Justice of the Peace Court to read “We Want A Peace Court”.

Janet Fenton, of Biggar, a Quaker, Coordinator of the Edinburgh Peace & Justice Centre[2], Vice Chair of Scottish CND[3] and member of Womens International League for Peace and Freedom[4] and Barbara Dowling, of Glasgow, a retired Occupational Therapist, had just been sentenced by JP Ross for their part in an Easter Monday blockade of Faslane Naval Base, where the UKs nuclear weapons are based. They were fined £500 each for doing £26 damage to the naval base sign and for blocking the entrance to the base for about an hour. The court had refused to hear their defence based on international law. JP Ross however dismissed these arguments and insisted that their motivations were irrelevant to their defence.

In her testimony Barbara Dowling said “The truth about Trident is that its only purpose is to destroy and murder civilians and children. It doesn’t discriminate. This is illegal under international law. We have a responsibility to act in any way to reveal the truth about Trident or disrupt activity at Faslane. This was the purpose of my actions and will be the purpose of my future actions.”

Morag Balfour of Glenrothes and list candidate for Mid Scotland and Fife Region for the Scottish Parliament for the Scottish Socialist Party[5] spoke of the UK government flying people with disabilities to the Australian nuclear weapons test site and subjecting them to fallout in order to study the effect of radiation on human bodies. She said the Australian government had warned whites of the danger of radiation so they could get away but not aboriginals and after testing the bomb had counted the dead sheep but not the dead aboriginal people.

Jean Oliver, a Quaker from Biggar and a member of the Iona Community[6] said the use and threat to use nuclear weapons was indefensible in the Christian faith. She asked “How relevant is it to you that everything you hold dear in our past and future could be ended? I believe we are in very real imminent danger. We don’t do this for fun. It isn’t nice to stand here. It isn’t nice to have to sit on cold wet ground. We do it because we won’t stand for it. It’s wrong and somehow we have to stop it.”

Janet Fenton and Barbara Dowling, are in custody and will be brought to Dumbarton Court tomorrow morning. All four were members of the Adomnan of Iona affinity group of Trident Ploughshares.

Janet Fenton also cited Judge Weeramantry, President of the International Court of Justice[7], which ruled in 1996 that a nuclear weapon system like Trident would be illegal, who wrote that “When the International Court heard the nuclear weapons case the evidence that was placed before it in regard to the human sufferings caused by the nuclear weapon and by nuclear testing was so harrowing that one could be left in no doubt of the need for the abolition of the weapon.... Every step that can be taken legally towards the abolition of this weapon of brutality needs to be taken and that those steps should be taken not nominally but effectively, not leisurely but urgently, not hesitantly but decisively”.

Contact: Brian Larkin 07768 312676

Photos attached.

ENDS

[1] For background information on Trident see: http://www.cnduk.org/index.php/campaigns/trident/no-to-trident.html

[2] For information of the Peace and Justice Centre go to: http://peaceandjustice.org.uk/

[3]For Scottish CND go to: http://banthebomb.org/ne/

[4]For WILPF see: http://www.ukwilpf.org.uk/

[5] For more on the Scottish Socialist Party see: http://www.scottishsocialistparty.org/

[6] For more on the Iona Community see: http://www.iona.org.uk/

[7] Conference on Trident and International Law. Keynote Speech. HE Judge Christopher Weeramantry. http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1544

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