|
|
||
|
The six activists arrived at H&K’s Nottingham warehouse building before any employees turned up. Using D-locks and arm-tubes, one pair locked themselves to the staff entrance while another pair blockaded the goods gate. Meanwhile the other two gained access to the roof and hung anti-arms-trade banners on the front of the building. On 21st December 2009, anti-arms-trade campaigners wrote to Nottingham-based arms company Heckler & Koch outlining their grave concerns about the company’s business activities, including the supply of weapons to repressive regimes. The open letter asked H&K to account for its dodgy dealings and provide assurances that its weapons would not be used to commit human rights abuses. Heckler & Koch failed to reply, so 28 days later, groups of concerned citizens set out to audit the arms company and to pose the question to the people of Nottingham: “What are they hiding?”  H&K weapons on display at the DSEi 2009 international arms fair The first protest against Nottingham-based arms company Heckler & Koch took place in May 2000, but it wasn’t until May 2008 that another demonstration launched the Shut Down H&K campaign, which has been running ever since. 18 months in, the campaign has decided that it’s about time to speak to Heckler & Koch. So, the campaign has written H&K a letter summarising the people’s concerns and asking the company to come clean about its dirty business…
Arms company Heckler & Koch has been in the news this week. It seems that H&K, whose international sales office is located in Nottingham, is still in the business of arming regimes that are well known to commit gross violations of human rights. We look at three examples from around the world. At mid-day on Friday November 13th, around 25 anti-arms-trade protesters gathered in the Arboretum park in Nottingham to take part in a unique, eye-catching demonstration against local arms company Heckler & Koch. A 25-foot long model of a H&K weapon had been built from a frame of willow wood, covered and painted black, and bearing the legend popularised by Brighton’s anti-arms-trade campaign Smash EDO: “Every bomb and every bullet fired is made somewhere… Find it… Resist it!” This gun was carried by the demonstrators in a long march from the Arboretum to the gates of Easter Park – the Lenton Lane industrial site that contains H&K’s warehouse. In returning the gun to the company that produced it, the demonstrators made a highly visible statement that H&K’s dirty business is not wanted by the people of Nottingham.
Continue reading Protesters march 25ft gun to Heckler & Koch Peruvian security forces armed with Heckler & Koch rifles and submachine guns have killed dozens of indigenous protesters near the northern city of Bagua. Indigenous communities of the Peruvian Amazon have been protesting against new “Free Trade” laws that would open up their ancestral lands to drilling for gas and oil. Since April 2009, indigenous protesters have stepped up their protest, blocking road and river transport and shutting down oil and gas pumping stations. On June 6, Peruvian President Alan García ordered in the troops, and police opened fire using live rounds on a crowd of protesters.  Peruvian police armed with H&K rifles take up positions in Bagua Continue reading Peru protesters killed by police armed with H&K
In 2009 Heckler & Koch will be 60 years old. In order to pre-empt the company’s birthday celebrations, German peace groups organised a protest with the slogan 60 Jahre Heckler & Koch: kein Grund zum Feiern (60 Years of Heckler & Koch: No Cause for Celebration). The Nottingham activists were invited to a March 7th demonstration by the peace groups RIB, ORL and DFG-VK, who also funded their journey. Continue reading Demo at German HQ of Nottingham arms company Georgian elite forces fighting in South Ossetia have been illegally armed with Heckler & Koch assault rifles. According to Human Rights Watch, the Georgian military “used indiscriminate and disproportionate force resulting in civilian deaths in South Ossetia”. However, that hasn’t stopped these war criminals from being customers of Heckler & Koch!
When Heckler & Koch applied for permission to supply 230 assault rifles to Georgia, the German government refused on the grounds that Georgia was involved in a war. But as any successful arms company knows, there are many ways to get around these obstacles, and sure enough, the German-made weapons showed up in Georgia anyway! To quote the head of BITS, “It doesn’t matter how these weapons landed in Georgia; whether they were illegally exported from Germany, whether a licensed exporter violated German laws or whether a recipient of the weapons who acquired them legally in Germany, further exported them.” The point is, that’s just how the arms industry works. And which department of Heckler & Koch is responsible for sales to Georgia and other non-NATO countries? Check the corporate website: It’s Heckler & Koch GB, based at Unit 3, Easter Park, Lenton Lane, Nottingham NG7 2PX. So next time you see pictures of wretched South Ossetian civilians clutching the bodies of their loved ones amid the shredded ruins of their homes, just remember: a company in Nottingham helped to make that happen.  Child posing with police H&K submachine gun at a summer fete in London Police are giving young children Heckler & Koch guns to handle at community events in England. At a recent summer fete in east London, the Met ran a stall displaying a H&K MP5 submachine gun. Children as young as seven were allowed to pose for photos holding the police weapon, which has a firing rate of 800 rounds per minute. The stunt has been sharply criticised by MPs and anti-gun campaigners. MP Jim Fitzpatrick said “Giving young children real guns to handle is inappropriate. It could be glamorising the weapons and creating familiarity which is plainly wrong.” George Galloway MP said “The foolish display at this festival can serve only to normalise firearms or make they appear attractive, even glamorous. We are tragically used to seeing images of primary school aged boys handling assault rifles in Liberia or Mogadishu, but in Limehouse?!” Police defended the initiative, claiming that it is intended to “divert people away from gun crime”, but Lyn Costello, co-founder of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, called it “a serious error of judgment.” And it seems that this event was not a one-off: “We’ve done this kind of thing in other places” said Superintendent Tarrant of the Met’s CO19 firearms unit. “We will continue doing it in future.” |
||
|
Shut Down H&K |
||
An anti-arms-trade campaign in Nottingham has discovered that Bournemouth-based company 
