Faslane face-off
Two Oxford students were arrested last Monday during a blockade of Faslane Nuclear Base, just outside of Glasgow. Matthew Sellwood of New College and Owen English of St. Catz were detained for 'breach of the peace' and held in custody for eight hours, but have not as yet been charged.
The protest was attended by five current Oxford students and several ex-students. Whilst three of them joined the blockade legally, Sellwood and English locked themselves to a pipe and lay down in the road for three hours. before finally being removed at 10am.
Sellwood described the protest as: 'a very successful and worthwhile action both in terms of being able to make a moral protest...and in achieving the practical aim of shutting down the base'.
Faslane contains four Trident nuclear submarines, each of which carries at least 48 nuclear warheads at a time of 'normal alert', eight times that of the Hiroshima bomb. The protesters blocked all entrances to the base for over four hours on the day.
21st Feb 2002