A police monitoring group has accused the Metropolitan Police of “desperately” trying to gather information about a protest rights training event ahead of one of the world’s biggest arms fairs.
Taking place every two years in London with support from the UK government, the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) fair is a huge exhibition run by Clarion Events that brings together thousands of arms buyers and dealers from all over the world under the roof of the ExCel conference centre to network and make deals with military delegations, government officials and other arms companies.
Netpol yesterday hosted a ‘Know Your Rights’ training session to educate protesters about their legal rights ahead of any direct action that might take place at the fair. Emails seen by openDemocracy show a police licensing officer trying to gather information ahead of the event – held at the Old Spotted Dog football ground in Forest Gate, east London – by twice asking the venue’s licensing holder about the number of attendees following a phone call between them.
Kevin Blowe, campaigns coordinator at Netpol and a trustee of the charity that runs the football ground, told openDemocracy that this was unusual and that other, larger, events at the venue had never attracted any police interest.
He said: “There have been much, much bigger events. This is the only time that the police licensing officer has ever approached the licence holder asking that question. I know that because I know the licence holder… It’s the first time they’ve ever made this approach.”
Blowe told openDemocracy that, since the football club that runs the ground took over the venue in 2020, it has hosted a number of bigger events, including a film screening about the war in Ukraine, pub gigs, and a comedy night. He alleges that no other event has ever attracted police enquiries about attendees before.
“This just came completely out of the blue. And it wasn't presented in any way as a licensing concern, it was just the licensing officer saying ‘I’ve been asked to find out’. So it’s just basically using the licensing officer’s position as a way to approach them, presumably on the basis that they would just give the answer,” he added.
After the phone call, the officer followed up with two emails seen by openDemocracy, one of which read “please do let me know… the numbers you are expecting” and the second of which repeated: “Do you know how many people the booking is for?”
Selling weapons from guns and bombs to fighter jets and warships, the fair has long attracted protesters, including religious and political groups, who have accused the UK government of fanning the flames of war by promoting and facilitating the sale of munitions designed for torture and destruction.
In 2021, the Guardian and the London-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) found that the UK government had sold arms to 21 out of the 30 countries on its own list of repressive regimes. In addition to this, the UK licensed £16.8bn of arms between 2011 and 2020 to countries that had been criticised for having a poor record on political and human rights.
Delegates from all over the world, including those with reported human rights abuses, such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been invited to the fair, where they will be courted by over 2,800 defence and security suppliers encouraging them to buy the latest high-tech surveillance technology and weaponry.
With its recent passing of the anti-protest Public Order Act, the UK government itself has been blasted by the UN High Commissioner for implementing laws that are “incompatible with the UK’s international human rights obligations”.
Stop The Arms Fair, a network of groups and individuals organising protests around the event, told openDemocracy that police making such enquiries appeared to be “an infringement of a legitimate right to protest, and another indication that they are firmly on the side of the arms dealers”.
They added: “It is also a further worrying sign of the lengths they will go to gather intelligence on peaceful protesters.”
Blowe echoed this and said: “It is an indication that what the police have been doing is looking around on social media, trying to find out who is talking about DSEI and trying to gather information about them and what their intentions are.
“It makes it all the more ironic that it is a Know Your Rights session.”
Previous arms fairs have seen demonstrations held throughout the week, with people ‘locking on’, blocking roads, and camping near the fair. This year a number of protests against the arms fair will be taking place outside the conference centre, with different days focusing on different causes, such as the Palestine Solidarity campaign, migrant justice, and policing, prisons and their direct relationship with the arms fair.
One of Netpol’s biggest concerns about the Public Order Act is “about the use of the new powers for stop and search to prevent disruption. Because we could really see those being something that will be used on a regular basis”.
Blowe added that the new laws are “part of an increasing intolerance towards protesters across the board. It’s not just the new powers that are necessarily the issues of concern, because the police had extensive powers before, it’s the tone and the relative level of aggressiveness of the operation as a whole.”
For Blowe, uncertainty about new laws and whether policing around DSEI will be more oppressive “is part of the mix of not really knowing exactly what the police reaction is going to be”.
“Hence the reason for focusing on making sure that people know what their basic rights are.”
The Met's press office was unable to provide an explanation for the request.
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Police gathered information on protesters ahead of arms fair - openDemocracy
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