Running time: 0 mins 33 secs
While police get on with arresting grannies as terrorists for holding bits of cardboard, others get on with the essential work of shutting down arms factories – showing how completely pointless this ridiculous proscription of Palestine Action is.
Here’s a statement on the action this morning from Sheffield group Stop Arming Israel.
“From 6am today, a Sheffield based arms manufacturer has been blockaded by a Palestine protest group. This has resulted in the weapons factory closing for the second time this week.
The Sheffield group Stop Arming Israel halted all traffic heading into the site before the first shift arrived for work at Forged Solutions, a company that is part of the F-35 program. Protestors stood in front of the entrance to the site holding banners, and a queue of lorries has been turned back. They plan to remain until 10am, and expect this to once again shut down the factory for a day.
The Forged Solutions Group produces parts for the F-35 fighter jets that have, which are used in Western backed war crimes committed by Israel across Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria . The company even boasts on its website to provide parts for “tanks and submarines, to military jets”.
This is an escalation against the Meadowhall site, after the weapons manufacturer was shut down on 16th July and saw over 500 people protest on 17th June who travelled from across Britain. The group describes it as a form of “peoples sanctions”, joining similar blockades, pickets and occupations across Britain that are seeing arms factories shut down regularly.
A spokesperson for the Stop Arming Israel group stated:
“The Stop Arming Israel group aims not only to target complicity but also direct participation in the genocide in Palestine. Forged Solutions has a long history of supplying parts to companies like Pratt and Whitney and Safran Aero Booster which go on to make engines for fighter jets like the F-35, F-16 and F-15. All of these planes are used by the occupation in its genocide of the Palestinians meaning that Forged Solutions is a participant in the genocide.
Whilst the British Establishment continues to support the Zionist occupation and criminalise resistance to genocide, Stop Arming Israel stands firmly with the Palestinians by disrupting the supply of weapons and death. Freedom to all oppressed peoples.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Another protestor explained their involvement in the blockade:
“As Sheffield residents, we are left with no choice but to take matters into our own hands and blockade the Forged Solutions factory. We have lobbied the council and the mayoral authority countless times about the city’s complicity in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. The most effective action we can take is to directly halt the activities of this factory and disrupt the supply chain of weapons being exported to Israel. Forged Solutions can continue to deny their involvement – we will continue our disruption.”
