DSEI arms fair host and exhibitors just got the Palestine Action treatment

Overnight on Sunday 7 September, Shut The System activists threw blood-red paint and cut fibre-optic cables at the London headquarters of the companies behind the UK’s largest arms fair, Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) and its host, Clarion Events:

The activists are calling out their complicity in the genocide in Gaza and atrocities globally.

DSEI arms fair: building a fortune on genocide

A Shut The System spokesperson said:

How can anyone with a shred of humanity build their fortune on mass slaughter? Shut The System’s answer – they are a symptom of a global financial system that prioritises extreme, psychopathic profiteering for growth’s sake alone, above solid healthcare and the natural support systems underpinning all life on Earth.

The action builds on Shut The System’s ‘Summer of Sabotage’ that the group declared on 18 August. To launch it, activists cut electric cables at the London offices of JP Morgan Chase, Allianz, and Barclays. Since then, Shut the System activists have also targeted Barclays branches and the offices of right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, smashing windows and dousing their buildings in paint. Mass protests are planned at the arms fair’s venue, London’s Excel Centre, till Friday.

DSEI plays host to many of the world’s largest military equipment and surveillance companies, including Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer of Hermes killer drones and Merkava tank parts Israel has deployed on civilians in Gaza.

Attendees also include BAE Systems, Britain’s partner manufacturing components for the F-35 fighter jets Israel uses to bomb families in Gaza, and American weapons company L3 Harris.

US and Europe-backed slaughter in Gaza: a ‘blueprint to commit genocide’

A Shut The System spokesperson said:

The US and Europe-backed slaughter of families in Palestine is the front line of our struggle for climate and social justice globally. If we can’t stop this genocide, power holders will use it as a blueprint to commit genocides elsewhere. It demonstrates how financially-driven, imperialist powers will stop at nothing, wiping out entire populations in order to extract coal, oil, gas and minerals. In London, a global financial centre, Shut The System is taking on the powers standing in our way to a safer, fairer world.

Featured image and additional images supplied