Jon Blake was threatened with arrest at a recent protest against the proposed St Athan military academy in South Wales. The ‘academy’ will be a private training centre for the military of the world, run by the Metrix consortium at an eventual cost to the taxpayer of £11 billion. Metrix involves, amongst others, arms manufacturers Raytheon who are responsible for the delivery of cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons. As one of the organisers of the anti-Metrix campaign Jon was told by South Wales police that they expected groups to attend the protest intent on causing public disorder – and if this happened he would be arrested as well as them.
In fact there was no disorder. It was almost certainly a story concocted by the police to justify not allowing the demo to enter Cardiff’s shopping district. All protesters were videoed and photographed by the police “Forward Intelligence Team”, but both march and rally were a success and campaigners remain undaunted by the Big Brother tactics of the authorities. For more on the campaign see antimetrix.org.
