ACTION FOR THE DSEI ARMS FAIR

Here are Neil Harvey’s photos from our Action at the Arms Fair on Tuesday 14th September.

This year the DSEI (Defence and Security Equipment International) Arms Fair is taking place at the Excel Exhibition Centre, in East London.

The exhibition is attended by arms dealers and representatives from regimes all round the world, looking for weapons to fight wars and to subdue internal opposition, often at the expense of causing civilian deaths and injuries and displacing people as refugees.

We are proposing to join up with the some of “Stop The Arms Fair” protests on September 14th, 2021.

There will be an Arms Fair Protest Walk, starting at 11am at Stratford Station, not Stratford International.

The walk will assemble outside Stratford Station (not Stratford International!) at 11am, and go via Plaistow to the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in Docklands to join other protesters at Tank the Arms Fair on the opening day of the DSEI arms fair 14th to 17th September.  The walk is expected to take around 2 hours.

The organisers were delighted when contacted and have offered for VFP members in VFP tops to carry their wreaths at the head of the walk. They have three wreaths for the dead of Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen respectively, in memory of the many, many victims of the arms trade in these countries.

They plan later in the day to walk round the back of the Royal Victoria Dock opposite the Excel Centre to cast the wreaths into the dock.  Our group are invited to join this action also.

If you do not fancy walking 4 miles, you can go direct to the Tank the Arms Fair Day of Action.

Tank the Arms Fair is a BIG day of action to resist the opening of the DSEI arms fair.