COPEX

An array of action took place at this year's COPEX exhibition, the annual showcase for the trade in torture weapons. The gates of Wembley Exhibition Centre were blockaded on the first 2 days, with 500 activists taking part on the first day. There were 24 arrests for obstruction of the highway, and one activist managed to get into the exhibition building and spill red paint over the foyer before being arrested.

As another part of the protests the offices of COPEX exhibitors GEC were occupied for four hours by People for an Arms-Free Future. The occupiers, many of whom attached themselves to various items of office furniture and barricaded themselves into individual offices, were calling for an end to GEC's indefensible 'defence' activities, and an end to GEC itself, since it is a despicable monolith run by an overpaid Blair-knighted toady known as Lord Simpson. A heady stream of polite anti-GEC invective and information was delivered to passing drivers and pedestrians as the police searched for ever more powerful equipment to snap D-locks and make holes in elaborately barricaded office walls. Two intrepid PFAFFers were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage to a fire alarm system and theft of electricity via telephone calls, but were released uncharged after close of business at GEC that evening.

Back on the street, a beat copper regaled ejected occupiers with his theory that the only way to really change things was through world revolution. Now if only we'd thought of that...