COORDINATED ACTIONS FOLLOW ENDING OF PALESTINE ACTION PRISONERS’ HUNGER STRIKE ~ Scott Harris ~ Hundreds of activists yesterday (28 January) blockaded entrances to arms factories in Lancashire, Newcastle and Edinburgh, shutting down the sites from early in the morning. Workers at the sites were unable to gain access, some for an entire shift. The factories targeted were BAE Systems in Samlesbury, Leonardo in Edinburgh and Rafael in Newcastle. “Parts of being made in this factory that are used on the F-35 fighter jet, used in Gaza and beyond”, said a protester in Lancashire, “Doing this on a regular basis means supply and production is being severely affected”. Groups from across the UK joined, travelling hours at a time to support the blockades. Police used force against protestors in Lancashire, manhandling them off the entrances and violently moving people along. In Edinburgh, despite their best efforts, police could not break the blockade, and the factory was closed all day. “The genocide is ongoing, we just can’t let capitalism continue as normal”, said a participant, “Our government is specifically supporting the Israeli government, everybody that is out on the streets need to be proud of being on the right side of history”. The previous night in London, swarms of campaigners targeted a luxury dinner attended by a number of arms dealers leading to arrests of protesters. A focus on arms manufacturers has significantly increased as the last two years and a half have exposed the UK’s deep relationship with Israel, including their surveillance flights and monitoring that have been exposed by declassified.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top photo: Blockade of Leonardo in Edinburgh The post Activists disrupt arms factories, industry dinner appeared first on Freedom News.

SURVEILLANCE COMPANY TARGETED FOR ROLE IN GAZA GENOCIDE ~ Scott Harris ~ Shut The System says its activists this morning destroyed entrances, glass panels, security cameras and ID card readers at Palantir Technology’s London office in Soho Square, then doused the facade in red paint. This action was taken in response to the company’s intense surveillance of Palestinians to profit from the genocide in Gaza, along with its controversial contract with the NHS. It comes a week after Shut The System took international direct action in London, Paris, Hamburg, Geneva and Vienna against fossil fuel investors Barclays and BlackRock. Palantir is a one of the world’s largest data mining and spy-tech companies, providing artificial intelligence to the Israeli military to escalate its assaults on Palestinians. Meanwhile, it is aggressively expanding its operations in British public institutions, including the NHS for which it faces strong opposition among health workers. In early 2024 Palantir announced a strategic partnership with the Israeli military, agreeing to ‘harness Palantir’s advanced technology in support of war related missions’. This partnership has involved supplying Israel with AI software which scrapes data gathered from the surveillance of Palestinians and places them in AI driven ‘kill chains’, further muddying the lines of accountability. The company also won a controversial £330 million contract to create a centralised data management platform for the NHS, as well as contracts with British police departments and social services. The NHS contract caused outrage amongst health workers who have been resisting Palantirs’ involvement. Palantir was created with funding from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm co-founded by Peter Thiell, a man with a long history of financial support for politicians who promote Christian nationalist and white supremacist politics, including his mentorship of James Vance. The firm plays a central role in Trump’s White House, including taking on a recent ten billion dollar contract with the US army, and a thirty million dollar contract to play a central role on ICE’s brutal immigration crackdown.   The post Paint action against Palantir in London appeared first on Freedom News.