Brighton Demonstration Against L3 Harris Arms Factory Saturday February 24th

500 People Having Written to Brighton & Hove Councillors Demanding That They Don’t Grant L3Harris Planning Permission to Help Israel Commit Genocide

On Saturday in Brighton 300 people held a demonstration at The Level and then marked 2 miles to an out of the way arms factory owned by L3 Harris on Brighton’s Moulsecoomb Estate.

 Previously the factory was called EDO-MBM. It too supplied weaponry to Israel. It was the subject of a major campaign ten years ago and also a famous trial in which all the protesters, who had caused over £¼ million damage  were acquitted.

The trial was presided over by an extremely sympathetic Judge Bathhurst Norman, whose summing up, as the Guardian reported, quoted favourably

the testimony by Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, that "all democratic paths had been exhausted" before the activists embarked on their action.

Bathhurst Norman, who was born in Haifa during the British Mandate, was later reprimanded by the judicial authorities, after a Zionist complaint, for the sympathy he had shown with the defendants.

The Jewish Chronicle was certainly not amused. It reported that

That case became notorious following the comments of Judge George Bathurst-Norman. He was formally reprimanded by the Office for Judicial Complaints after telling the Hove Crown Court jury: “You may well think that hell on earth would not be an understatement of what the Gazans suffered at that time [during Operation Cast Lead].”

Telling the truth has always been frowned upon by the judicial authorities.

L3Harris is the 12th largest weapons manufacturer in the world. It makes bomb release mechanisms for F-35 fighter jets being used by Israel to kill Palestinians.

Picket of L3Harris Arms Factory in Brighton

L3Harris is a major US weapons developer, which has facilities in the Massachusetts cities and towns of Northampton, Ayer, and Wilmington. L3 Harris supports Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland, US militarism and imperialism, and the US government's regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations of Black and Brown migrants.

Support for the Israeli ethnic cleansing

As reported by AFSC Investigate, L3Harris is a top supplier of component parts for Lockheed Martin F-35 warplanes, which Lockheed Martin sells to Israel, manufacturing a total of 1,600 components for each of Lockheed Martin's F-35s. Israel used its fleet F35 warplanes during its May 2021 bombing campaign against Palestinians living in Gaza.

L3Harris also produces components for Boeing's Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) guided bombs, or "smart bombs," which enable increased precision in striking targets. These JDAM-guided bombs have been directly linked to the killing of at least 44 Palestinian civilians in Israel's bombing of al-Wahda street in May 2021. L3 Harris has also previously supplied Israel with "SafeView body scanner machines," which Israel used at the Qalandia, Bethlehem, and Sha’ar Efraim (Irtach) military checkpoints in the West Bank, and the Erez checkpoint in the Gaza Strip.

Together with its so-called "separation wall," Israel's military checkpoints function to immiserate Palestinians who refuse to leave their land to make space for Zionist settlement expansion. Israel's checkpoints also function to fragment Palestinian society, physically separating Palestinians from one another and preventing Palestinians from moving freely across their land to travel to work, to tend their farmland during the day, and to visit loved ones.

L3Harris manufactured the management systems for the Israeli Navy’s fleet of Sa’ar 5 and Sa’ar 6 warships. Israel uses these warships to enforce its naval blockade on the Gaza strip, which denies the nearly 2 million Palestinians living in Gaza access to basic resources necessary to maintain water, sewage, electric, medical and other civilian infrastructure, significant amounts of which Israel destroys each time it bombs Gaza and which Palestinians cannot rebuild due to this blockade.

Israel then delays or denies Palestinians access to exit permits necessary to leave Gaza, preventing Palestinians from receiving life-saving medical care, which Palestinians cannot provide for themselves as the result of Israel's naval blockade which prevents resources from coming into Gaza along with Israel's bombing campaigns which destroy what infrastructure Palestinians attempt to construct in Gaza.

Accordingly, L3Harris bears responsibility not only for equipping the warplanes Israel has used to kill and injure thousands of Palestinians during its bombing campaigns against Gaza, but also for equipping the warships Israel uses to enforce its naval blockade of Gaza, which causes the mass preventable illness, death, and suffering amongst the people of Gaza.

Support for the US militarism and imperialism

L3Harris has derived $36.15 billion to date through US Department of Defense (DoD) contracts for the provision of products and services to the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, and other branches of the US military. Recent L3Harris business dealings with the US DoD include this $750 million contract to equip the US Marines with "multi-channel handheld and vehicular radio systems," as well as this this $947.3 million contract to support the US Air force's "aircraft electronic warfare system initiative."

Support for US tracking, detentions, and deportations of migrants

As reported by AFSC Investigate, L3Harris equips the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (a sub-agency within DHS) with advanced surveillance technologies, which DHS and ICE use to enforce the US government's brutal regime of tracking, detentions, and deportations of Black and Brown migrants.

Over the past decade, L3 Harris has provided DHS and ICE with tens of millions of dollars worth of cell-site simulators, known as "Stingrays," and subsequently provided DHS and ICE with an upgraded version of The Stingray known as "The Crossbow."

Stingrays and Crossbows mimic cell phone towers to make cell phones connect to them, allowing DHS and ICE to pinpoint the location of mobile devices or to identify phone numbers in their certain area, and thereby enabling DHS and ICE to more effectively track the movements of the migrants they target. In 2019, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded L3 Harris a 5-year contract worth a potential $3 billion for "tactical communication networks," by extending the contract DHS had previously established with L3 Harris in 2013.

This is reprinted from The Mapping Project

Justice for Jay Abatan – 23 Years is Long Enough to Wait

SUSSEX POLICE ARE NOT INNOCENT – Jay Abatan is Brighton's Stephen Lawrence 

Last Saturday I attended a demonstration outside Brighton Police Station commemorating the murder of Jay Abatan.

On the 29^th January 1999 Jay Abatan was murdered by a White racist gang after he and his brother Michael had gone to the Ocean Rooms night club in Morley Street, Brighton. Sussex Police literally did nothing. An investigation by Essex Police uncovered 57 major failures - such as failing to secure the murder scene and failing to take witness statements. Essex Police found that earlier in the day a serving police officer was seen drinking with the murder suspects. It was a rerun of what happened with Stephen Lawrence. There too corrupt officers had contacts with the murderers and covered for them.

Jay Abatan

The video above of Aflo the Poet describes what happened. The police didn’t even bother to photograph Michael’s injuries, there was no investigation room, no computers, nothing.

This was not accidental but the result of police racism. And their excuse today that they will investigate if there’s new evidence begs the question. What are the Police there for if they are unable to go out and look for the evidence themselves?

When it comes to policing demonstrations or harassing groups like Extinction Rebellion or Palestine Action there are always police available. But when it comes to finding resources for an investigation into the murder of a Black man there are insufficient resources. The same goes for rape which according to Victims' Commissioner Dame Vera Baird has virtually been decriminalised in this country.  Just 1.4% of rape complaints resulted in a charge.

But when I tell the Labour Party Disputes Team to f*** off and die then there are police aplenty for an offence which isn’t even imprisonable. It isn’t lack of resources but a question of priorities and racist attacks are not a priority.

Michael Abatan (centre) and Zita Holborne (speaking)

When there were weekly pickets outside the EDO-MBM arms factory in Moulsecoomb every week the Police had no problem in finding dozens of officers. They also used undercover officers to infiltrate the campaign against EDO. But when it comes to prosecuting racists then the Police plead they don’t have enough person power.

The murder of Jay Abatan took place in the wake of the MacPherson Inquiry into the racist behaviour of the Metropolitan Police regarding Stephen Lawrence’s murder but it hasn’t had the same publicity.

Michael Abatan speaking

It’s not a question of a few bad apples in the police force but that the barrel is rotten. Why? Because the priority of the Police is protection of property, capitalist property, not people.

In LB Southwark v Williams [1971] Lord Denning ruled that hunger was no defence against a charge of theft:

“necessity would open a door which no man could shut…If hunger were once allowed to be an excuse for stealing the plea would be an excuse for all sorts of wrong doing. The courts must take a firm stand.”

Sir Peter Bottomley Tory MP for Worthing West attended the demonstration unlike the 3 Brighton & Hove MPs - Green and Labour

The only MP who was at the demonstration was Sir Peter Bottomley, who represents Worthing West. Despite the fact that this murder happened in Brighton none of the 3 Brighton and Hove MPs were present. I wouldn’t expect Peter Kyle, the Red Tory MP for Hove to attend since the only thing that motivates him is support for Israeli Apartheid. But where was Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion or Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown? It is clear that to our political representatives racism is not a priority.

Racism, sexism and homophobia in the Police is often blamed on a ‘canteen culture, but this is too glib and answer. Police culture stems from the inherently racist and reactionary practices of the Police which results in most police being right-wing and assimilating to a culture of blaming minorities for capitalism’s problems.

Jay Abatan - Brighton Police refused to conduct an investigation into his murder

Police Culture of Racism, Sexism and Homophobia

In the Hotton Report the following were some of the messages recorded on WhatsApp groups or on mobile phone texts:

Ø Messages about police officers attending a festival dressed as known sex offenders and a molested child

Ø numerous messages about rape and ‘raping’ each other in a WhatsApp group containing 19 police officers, and within a Facebook chat group containing four police officers).

Ø Homophobic comments such as “Gayyyyyy”, “You fucking gay!” and “Fuck you bender”

Ø One officer sent messages saying “I would happily rape you”; “if I was single I

Ø would actually hate fuck you” and “if I was single I would happily chloroform you”

Ø ‘Just walked past the big mosque all the fanatics turn up at to radicalise the young muslims....”

Ø “My dad kidnapped some African children and used them to make dog food.”

Ø “PWPEHCLM - People with pre-existing heart conditions lives matter. Should of offered him a kit kat and a nice lie down. Murdering cunts.”

Ø “Bring all the lefties I say, we can sing ““cum by ya” and embrace our multi gender/ethnic and sexual backgrounds whilst denouncing all the fascists in the MET...yay for Xmas partied [sic]...except of course that's a Christian celebration and I believe in ALL religions so it's not on!! Stick to our own...”

Ø  “Some uniform or plain clothes work on Somalian rats... I battered one the other day...weighed less than [police officer’s name].”

Ø “Opened my balcony door and loads of flies flew into the front room. So I got the fly spray and turned my gaff into Auschwitz.”

Ø A police officer sent another officer an image of a Black man wearing a white shirt. His colleague asked, “What’s good about it I don’t get it lol.” He replied, “Ignore the robber...I like the shirt.”

Ø Use of derogatory terms about people with disabilities, including “spastics” and “retard”.

Ø One police officer was referred to as “mcrapey raperson” in a WhatsApp exchange. When officers on his team were asked to provide an explanation for this nickname, it was explained that there were rumours about him bringing a woman back to the police station to have sex with. Others reported it related to his “particular fondness of IC3 and IC4.” (IC3/4 refer to standard codes for Black and Asian people).

Ø A further officer clarified that he thought the nickname related to “harassing them [women], getting on them, do you know what I mean being like, just a dick.”

A WhatsApp conversation between two police officers:

Ø Officer 1: “And my bird won't stop taking the piss. Swear to got [sic] I'm going to smack her”

Ø Officer 2: “Slap her one...say you didn’t”

Ø Officer 1: “I`ll fucking do it. She`s fucked off home.”

A separate WhatsApp conversation between two police officers:

Ø Officer 1: “I fucking need to take my bird out, won’t see her until next Saturday. Then I have to work. Promised to take her out the Friday after. Making it up to her from when I backhanded her”

Ø Officer 2: “Grab her by the pussy”

Ø Officer 1: “You ever slapped your missus?”

Ø Officer 1: “It makes them love you more. Seriously since I did that she won’t leave me alone. Now I know why these daft cunts are getting murdered by their spastic boyfriends. Knock a bird about and she will love you. Human nature. They are biologically programmed to like that shit.”

Ø Officer 2: “Lmao”

Ø Officer 1: “I’m right though”

Ø Officer 1: “I had that massive fight with my bird because she found out I'd been out on the piss with this girl who's a high class hooker a couple of weeks ago Hahahah”

Ø Officer 1: “Make friends with high class hookers”

Ø Officer 2: “I had one in Watford from adult work. Used to fuck her all the time”

Ø Officer 1: “Yes! Hahaha”

Ø Officer 2: “used just hang out and blast her on the sly”

Ø Officer 2: “when I was on roids and needed it every hour”

Messages sent by a male officer to a female officer:

Ø “I would happily rape you”

Ø “if I was single I would actually hate fuck you”

Ø “if I was single I would happily chloroform you”

Further messages sent about women, include:

Ø “Getting a woman in to bed is like spreading butter. It can be done with a bit of effort using a credit card, but it's quicker and easier just to use a knife.”

Ø “Fuck knows what she's on about I just wanna spuff on her” (sent by an officer in reference to another police officer’s girlfriend).

Ø “Mate my Mrs is driving me mad - come and shag a baby into her it might shut her up bro.”

Ø Female officers told us they would be treated as the “weary female,” told it was part of police culture, that they should accept, “play the game or stay quiet”, or leave.

The Report also said that ‘We also obtained evidence that reports of sexual harassment were not dealt with sensitively within the MPS.’ Which surely can’t come as a surprise!

This is not a ‘cultural’ problem but a political problem stemming from the politics of the officers and their role as they (quite correctly) see it.

What is interesting is that these comments focussed on officers at Charing Cross Police Station near Trafalgar Square. I joined a picket there about 6 months ago. A supporter of Palestine Action, Richard, was being charged with Blackmail no less. This was because the landlord of the Death Merchants Elbit Systems Ltd. which supplies weapons to Israeli war criminals were told that if they didn’t stop leasing properties to Israel’s Elbit Systems they too would be targeted.

Is it any wonder that this right-wing dross and collection of bigots should go the extra mile to defend the manufacture of weapons that kill Palestinian children and civilians? After all they find ‘jokes’ about turning Black children into dogfood amusing and compare spraying insecticide to ‘Auschwitz’.

Tony Greenstein

For information on the campaign contact abatanm@hotmail.com See also the Jay Abatan Campaign Facebook Page

Family of man killed in ‘racist attack’ continue fight for justice 23 years on

Jay Abatan: Vigil calls for justice 23 years after Brighton killing