Arms trade

Right now, civilian deaths in Gaza are rising at a staggering rate. The Israeli authorities' 16-year-long illegal and inhumane blockade has trapped 2.3 million people in Gaza, including children, the elderly, and disabled, under relentless bombardment by Israeli authorities. With nowhere to go, they face losing everything.
DSEI – one of the world’s largest arms fairs – returns to London in September 2023 Get ready to join in the resistance to DSEI 2023. StopDSEI from 12-15th September 2023! Every two years, the global arms trade comes to London. Over the years this has been a key theme for SPEAK days of action and in more recent years SPEAK artists have taken part in Art the Arms trade in the run up. It was was the campaign theme of our Peace Festival we organised a few years back. Many of SPEAK partner groups and sister networks take part in this and we really want to encourage and support the Network to stay active in this important campaign. We are hoping to do a get together and a prayer session together in September 2023 as part of the action.
We at Speak are encouraging people to take a week of action for Peace in September. Here is our suggested plan - are you with us??
Five Christians were arrested for gluing themselves together to block one of the entrances to the DSEi arms fair last week. In so doing, they have drawn a lot of attention to the role of the UK in the global arms trade, the state that facilitates the proliferation of weapons for private profit, and what it means to be a peacemaker.
A SPEAK banner from the protests against the DSEi arms fair in 2011
Remember the blue 'Dehumanising Destruction' drones Pray & post card? Well the recent increase in media and parliamentary attention towards drones are the fruit of SPEAK's campaign for greater transparency in this area, so a reason to be thankful! Yet our work is for from over, as Fellowship of Reconciliation's Jessica Dalton-Cheetham explains for us here...
This morning, a bunch of people gathered outside Church House to pray while the building was being used to house an arms conference. Chris went along and gives his thoughts and reflections...
Remember the blue 'Dehumanising Destruction' Pray & Post card? After handing another batch into 10 Downing Street, the Ministry of Defence have given us a response.
Yesterday, Chris Duncan did a one man march into Westminster to deliver a SPEAK pray & post petition to Number 10 Downing Street. The trip had an extra little surprise in store for him!
After decades of indifference, it seems strange that the West should now so suddenly develop a conscience concerning the welfare of Libyan civilians. Libyans have long suffered the tyranny of Gadaffi’s dictatorship, well-armed as it is by companies based in the ‘developed’ world. So why is it only now that those arms sales licenses have been cancelled?
This past month students have been making a stand against universities which profit from and invest in the arms trade.