Stop The Arms Fair

Welcome to the website of Stop the Arms Fair

DSEi (Defence and Security Equipment International) is – according to its organisers, Clarion Events – the biggest arms fair in the world. The four-day arms bazaar takes place every two years at the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands. The next one is due to take place from 10-13 September, 2013.

Stop the Arms Fair, formed in January 2011, is a coalition of groups and individuals campaigning to end government support for DSEi 2011 and all future arms fairs, and to put a stop to them. We say: no more bloody arms fairs in London or anywhere.

Members of the coalition include:

• Boycott Israel Network
  Boycott Israel Network is a coalition of groups and individuals working for boycotts, divestment and sanctions from apartheid Israel . [website]
• Bristol Against the Arms Trade
  BAAT is a non-hierarchical group of activists in the Bristol area who share a belief in the necessity of direct action to oppose militarism and the arms industry. BAAT aims to challenge the military/ industrial complex in all its forms, and to raise awareness of the arms industry. [website]
• Campaign Against Arms Trade
  CAAT is a UK organisation that works to end the international arms trade. CAAT’s priorities are to stop harmful arms exports and procurements, to end government support for arms exports, and to promote progressive demilitarisation within arms-producing countries. [website]
• Communication Workers Union
  The Communication Workers Union (CWU) is the biggest union for the communications industry in the UK. [website]
• conscience TAXES FOR PEACE NOT WAR
  conscience TAXES FOR PEACE NOT WAR is a campaigning organisation which works to create a world where taxes are used to nurture peace, not pay for war. [website]
• Disarm DSEi
  Disarm DSEi is a network set up to confront, resist and shut down the DSEi arms fair. Disarm DSEi is a banner under which activists can organise resistance and take direct action against the arms fair, its organisers and the companies that exhibit weapons there. [website]
• East London Against Arms Fairs
  ELAAF is an organisation of East London residents that campaigns for the cancellation of all future arms fairs with a view to stopping the arms trade, and helps to raise awareness among the general population of the occurrence and nature of arms fairs. [website]
• Fellowship of Reconciliation
  The Fellowship of Reconciliation is an international, spiritually-based movement of people who, from the basis of a belief in the power of love and truth to create justice and restore community, commit themselves to active nonviolence as a way of life and as a means of personal, social, economic and political transformation.[website]
• GreenAcre Project
  The GreenAcre Project is a community-based campaign to establish a nature reserve in Finchley. [website]
• London CAAT
  This local branch of CAAT raises awareness and peacefully protests against the many arms industry organisations and events in London. London CAAT is an active group that carries out many actions in the city, including walking tours of local arms companies, and protests outside events related to DSEi. [website]
• London Catholic Worker
  London CW is a community of the international radical Christian Catholic Worker movement. The community is Catholic, ecumenical, pacifist, communitarian and anarchist. London CW focuses resistance on the “war on terror”, British nuclear weapons and the arms trade. [website]
• London Guantánamo Campaign
  The London Guantánamo Campaign has been campaigning since 2006 for the return of all British residents from the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, the release of all prisoners, the closure of this prison and other similar prisons and an end to the practice of extraordinary rendition. [website]
• Palestine Solidarity Campaign
  PSC is an independent, non-governmental and non-party political organisation with members from many communities across Britain, and increasingly throughout the world. PSC represents people in Britain from all faiths and political parties, who have come together to work for peace and justice for the Palestinian people. [website]
• Pax Christi
  Pax Christi, Peace of Christ, is a gospel-based lay-inspired, peacemaking movement. [website]
• Smash EDO
  Smash EDO is a Brighton-based grassroots campaign against EDO MBM/ITT – a company that makes bomb racks, release clips and arming mechanisms for warplanes and drones. Smash EDO activists have carried out numerous direct actions and demonstrations against EDO’s Brighton arms factory. [website]
• SPEAK Network
  SPEAK is a Christian network connecting together young adults and students to campaign and pray about issues of global injustice. SPEAK seeks to bring about changes that will counteract the damage done by the arms trade, and empower those who work for peace. [website]
• Stop the War Coalition
  Stop the War Coalition aims to stop the “War on Terror” declared by the United States and its allies. Stop the War has organised massive demonstrations against the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and campaigns against the military occupations of those countries. [website]
• Student Christian Movement
  SCM is a student-led community passionate about faith and justice, which envisions Christianity as inclusive, aware, radical and challenging. [website]
• Trident Ploughshares
  Trident Ploughshares is a part of the international nuclear disarmament movement. Over 200 Trident Ploughshares activists have pledged to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system in a non-violent, open, peaceful, safe and fully accountable manner. [website]
• Uniting for Peace
  Uniting for Peace exists to encourage and support local and international efforts to foster lasting peace in conflict zones worldwide. [website]
• Veggies
  The Veggies vegan catering campaign serves tasty food and drinks to refresh and sustain the demonstrators at DSEi. [website]
• War on Want
  War on Want fights poverty in developing countries in partnership with people affected by globalisation. War on Want campaigns for human rights and against the root causes of global poverty, inequality and injustice. [website]

We are seeking to build a large coalition of groups and individuals in the coming months to send out a loud and clear message to the government and Clarion Events that inviting representatives of repressive regimes and their armed forces to hob-nob and do dodgy deals at DSEi and similar arms bazaars with representatives from the UK government and unscrupulous arms companies from around the world IS NOT OK.

If you would like to join the coalition as a group or individual, or come along to the planning meetings, please get in touch.