BIASED POLICE ARE IGNORING CRIME, SAY ACTIVISTS

Nine More Arrests at Ploughshares Camp

As nine more activists were arrested for a variety of alleged offences the Trident Ploughshares campaign has accused Strathclyde Police of bias and of failing to deal with crime on their own patch. The campaign acknowledges the good relationships that exist between the activists and police officers but is seeking a further step in the right direction.

Their letter to the Chief Constable says: If Strathclyde Police officers intervene by arresting and bodily emoving protesters from a blockade of a gate at Faslane or Coulport in order to allow base workers to enter that base, they are not acting impartially but have chosen to confer "lawful business" status on the Trident operation, . . It is not good enough to say that Trident is a government operation or sanctioned by parliament. Many partisan actions by police in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere in actively supporting or turning a blind eye to ethnic cleansing or murder had governmental sanction. . . To put it as bluntly as possible mass destruction is being planned on your patch and you seem not to be interested. We are deeply frustrated that police and legal authorities consistently turn a deaf ear to our pleas for their intervention."

Last night's arrestees were: Brian Quail (62), a retired teacher from Glasgow, Carol Kirby (35), from Oxford, David Mackenzie (56), an educational consultant from Larbert in Scotland, Jane Tallents (42), from Helensburgh in Scotland, Ulla Røder (45), a peace campaigner from Odense in Denmark and member of the "Trident Three", David Heller (24), a geographer from Hull, Georgina Smith, a longtime anti-nuclear protester from the Highlands, Niels Herre de Boer (26), from Holland, Frances Howe (21), a student from Brighton.

These brought to 158 the total of arrests so far at the Trident Ploughshares disarmament camp which concludes today.