No Faith In Arms: On Tuesday 5th September 2017 various faith groups came to London’s Docklands for a faith-based day of protest against the Defence and Security Equipment International (Dsei) Arms fair, the largest arms fair in the world, held every two years at the Excel Centre on the north bank of the Royal Victoria Dock in Newham.
Before I arrived some protesters had locked themselves together on the approach road to the East gate of the site stopping deliveries for setting up the event for some time.
People of various faiths were sitting beside the road and a number of Quakers held a meeting on the grass verge. A number of them went and sat down in the road to stop deliveries. Police talked with them for some time, urging them to move before carrying them away and depositing them on the grass.
A few were arrested and led away to waiting police vans but the protest continued with more moving out to block the road.
Then four protesters descended on ropes from a bridge over the approach road a few hundred yards to the north, dangling in mid-air, with each pair holding a banner between them and blocking the road for around an hour and a half before police managed to remove them. Others stood in a circle and held a mass on the blocked road closer to the Excel Centre.
There are just two gates to the Excel centre site almost a mile apart, and at the other, the West Gate I found a small group of protesters walking very slowly in front of lorries coming into the centre and being moved away by police. One woman who kept going back onto the road was eventually arrested.
I returned to the East Gate, where a small group of Buddhists was sitting and praying by the side of the road. An Anglican group arrived to sing peace songs and some protesters had brought small black coffins with photographs of some of the children killed in war taped to the top which were arranged along the side of the road.
The protests continued for a number of days and I returned several times to photograph them as you can see at the links listed below. I also covered protests against the arms fair in other years, at least since 2007.
Protests are taking place now over the 2023 Dsei Arms fair, again being held in Newham and you can find details at the Stop The Arms Fair web site. The include a vigil by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign today, 5th September 2013, and other events at the site and elsewhere until the arms fair ends on Friday 15th September.
The world’s largest arms fair currently takes place in London every two years, at the Excel Centre, a large exhibition centre in Custom House, East Ham in the London Borough of Newham. Organised by Clarion Events, the Defence and Security Equipment International show is “fully endorsed” by the UK Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Trade, but condemned by London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan and most Londoners and opposed by a week of protests organised by Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and supported by many other groups.
Sadiq Khan has failed to stop the arms fair taking place, lacking the powers to do so despite his repugnance. Amnesty International criticise it for selling weapons of torture and those that have been shown to have been used against civilians, and CAAT point out that it is attended by official military and security delegations from countries which are noted abusers of human rights, including those on the UK’s official list of countries subject to arms embargo.
Of course with the UK the high profits to be made on arms sales often trumps such listings; Action on Armed Violence points out that “five of the UK’s human rights priority countries feature on the DIT’s ‘key markets’ directory for potential arms sales (Bahrain, Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia)” and that “UK export licences for small arms and ammunition have been approved to 31 destinations on the embargoed and restricted list” betwwen 2015 and 2020.
In September 2017 I photographed protests outside the DSEI arms fair on four days in the week before the fair as well as a related event elsewhere and a wreath-laying ceremony on the opening day. There are fuller accounts on My London Dairy – links at the end of this post.
No Faith in War DSEI Arms Fair protest – ExCeL Centre, London. Tue 5 Sept 2017
The second day of protests against the world’s largest arms fair held in London’s docklands was ‘No Faith In War’, a series of events organised by various faith groups.
Quakers held a meeting by the side of the approach road to the East Gate of Excel, and some sat on the road to block it. Eventually police lifted this woman carefully and carried herto the side of the road. Some who persisted in blocking the road were arrested and taken to police vans.
Four people abseiled from a roadway bridge to block the road. It took police a long time to find a safe way to remove them.
People held a mass on the roadway – police waited until they finished then made them leave.
At the west gate people walked very slowly in front of the lorries. Eventually police pushed them off the road. Some were arrested. Others had come to support them and sing hymns and religious songs. There were various other activities at both gates.
Stop the Arms fair protesters carried out a series of lengthy lock-ons on the roads at both East and West gates blocking access to London’s ExCeL centre where preparations are being made for the worlds’s largest arms fair.
Police teams took quite a long time to carefully separate the people who were locked together to block the roads. There was also some street theatre from various groups. One pair of protesters managed to lock themselves on the roadway inside the centre gates – but police would not let journalists get closer to photograph them.
I went back to the East gate to find another pair locked on there. The protesters managed to block both entrances for several hours – and there were quite a few arrests.
Veterans for Peace came to set up a banned weapons checkpoint. Police waved lorries on past their checkpoint, encouraging one lorry to drive through the protest at a highly dangerous speed, and removed protesters from the road with threats of arrest.
At lunchtime North London Food Not Bombs moved onto the road and blocked it to serve protesters with an excellent road-block picnic. After 15 minutes police moved in to clear the road, threatening the diners with arrest.
DSEI Festival Morning at the East Gate – Sat 9 Sep 2017
Several hundred people listened to a programme of speakers, workshops, spoken word, choirs and groups and stopped lorries bringing arms by walking in front of them until pushed aside by police.
Festival of Resistance – DSEI West Gate – Sat 9 Sep 2017
Things were a little livlier at the West gate, where cyclists in a ‘Critical Mass’ were arriving and Charlie X, a Chaplin clone who protests in mime had just been freed from the lorry he had locked on to but had been arrested and was being led away by a dozen police. They also arrested one of the cyclists for having a bike lock around his neck. He had it to lock the wheels to his bike if he had to leave it anywhere. If carrying a lock or chain for your bike was an offence, every cyclist in London would face arrest.
DSEI East Gate blocked – Sat 9 Sep 2017
I took the DLR back to the East gate, arriving to find the road blocked by a lock-on, with two people joined through a pipe which the police were struggling to remove. Finally they did and arrested to two involved. People were blocking the road and holding a religious service, but police forced them off the road – with at least one more arrest of a woman who refused to move.
While the police were removing the two locked on, a man had locked himself to the lorry – and he too was removed and arrested. Other people came onto the road to block lorries and there were poetry and musical performances. Then a group of seven people joined arms in a circle on the road and refused to move. They were still there when I had to leave, stopping off briefly at the DLR entrance to the Excel Centre to photograph a musical protest there.
#Arming The World -Woolwich Arsenal, London. Tue 12 Sep 2017
Ice & Fire theatre and Teatro Vivo with designer Takis, gave their first performance of #Arming The World, a satircial weapons catwalk show spreading information about Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) at Woolwich Arsenal with actors dressed as arms dealers, a Paveway IV Missile, a Eurofighter Typhoon and CS Gas.
Wreath for victims of the arms trade – Royal Victoria Dock, Tue 12 Sep 2017
East London Against Arms Fairs (ELAAF) held a procession carrying a white wreath with the message ‘Remember Victims of the Arms Trade’ around the Royal Victoria Dock on the day the DSEI Arms Fair opened, launching the wreath onto the water opposite the ExCeL centre.
Police surround protesters who are stopping a lorry going into the armsfair
Tomorrow, Monday 6th September 2021 sees the beginning of the protests against DSEI 2021 Arms Fair taking place at the Excel Centre in East London. Protests there will continue until 17th September, the final day of the arms fair.
No Faith In War’ protesters block the road by abseiling down from a bridge
I hope to be able to be there and photograph some of the protests, as I have in several previous years. The more dedicated activists will be staying at a protest camp close to the fair, but I will only visit the site for a few hours, making my way across London and then back home – a journey of roughly and hour and a half each way.
Women hold the London WILPF banner in front of a line of coffins on the blocked road
The Arms Fair is certainly one of the largest in the world, and attracts both buyers and sellers from many countries including some of the world’s most repressive regimes. Although the government claims to restrict the sale of British made weapons and equipment to some of the more reprehensible dictators, in practice these controls are ineffectual and somehow don’t seem to apply to some of our largest business clients.
These limited restrictions of course do not apply to those foreign nations and companies who have many stalls inside the fair and can do whatever business they like. In recent years this has been shown to include selling weapons that are outlawed by international agreements.
The protests are organised by the Campaign Against Arms Trade, CAAT, though many other groups also take part. You can find details of the events on their web site. The big day of action, Tank the Arms Fair, is on Tues 14th September, the first day of the fair.
The pictures here come from 2017, the last time I was able to photograph some of the protests. The fair – which the London Mayor and the local council have clearly stated their opposition – takes place every two years. I missed the 2019 protests as I was in Cumbria.
You will find much more about the protests and many more pictures from 2017 on My London Diary at these links:
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.
