The protest at RAF Waddington. Photo: Photo courtesy ‘Zero Shame Contracts’.
First charges for anti-drones protest
Six activists are to stand trial following a drones protest at RAF Waddington
Six activists, including a Quaker and two priests, will stand trial in October for damaging a fence during a protest at RAF Waddington on 3 June. The Lincolnshire RAF base is used to operate unmanned drone aircraft.
The group, aged from thirty-seven to sixty-six are the first activists in Britain to be arrested and charged for anti-drones related offences
The activists were kept overnight at Lincoln police station after they broke into the RAF base, set up banners and planted a peace garden.
The action was timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the first UK drone strike and the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression.
Pilots based at RAF Waddington began operating Reaper aircraft based in Afghanistan earlier this year.
The drones carry laser-guided weapons, including Hellfire missiles and GBU-12 bombs, but the Ministry of Defence states that they are mainly used for surveillance.
An MoD spokesperson said: ‘We can confirm that thousands of hours of surveillance have been flown and a number of precision weapons deployed.’
The UK Defence Select Committee announced a new inquiry on drones on 11 July. This will examine the ethics and legality of their use. The Fellowship of Reconciliation are urging people to write to their MP to encourage them to put pressure on the inquiry.
The activists’ trial will be at Lincoln Magistrates’ Court on 7 October. In the meantime, they have been granted bail on the condition they do not go within one hundred metres of any RAF base in Lincolnshire.
The oldest of the activist group, Susan Clarkson, is a Quaker and active peace campaigner. She is a member of the Oxford Catholic Worker community, which campaigns for peace and shares a simple communal life.
The others are: Martin Newell, a Catholic priest; Keith Hebden, an Anglican priest; Henrietta Cullinan, a teacher; Chris Cole, coordinator of the Drone Campaign Network; and Penny Walker, a campaigner for asylum seekers in Leicester.
Keith Hebden said: ‘After entering RAF Waddington we planted a vine and fig tree, echoing the words of the prophet Micah,“they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid”.’
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