direct action

Would you like to take action against the militarisation of youth? You can join War Resisters' International's week of action from 14 to 20 November (as an individual or as a group).

War Resisters' International is organising the 2nd International Week of Action Against the Militarisation of Youth this year from 14 to 20 November. The week is a concerted effort of antimilitarist action across the world to raise awareness of, and challenge, the ways young people are militarised, and to give voice to alternatives.

STUDENTS who staged a spontaneous peace protest at an armed forces recruitment stand at their university were threatened with arrest yesterday.

The students say they were intimidated by military recruiters, university staff and security guards who called the police. One protester was told: “Go back to Greece.”

The Royal Navy, navy reserves and Royal Air Force were running a recruitment stand at the University of Bradford’s annual spring careers fair.

Protester and biomedical science student Beth Davies said: “This was just a group of students. We saw what was going on and decided something should be done about it.

“The military called security and security threatened to call the police.

“Nobody was arrested because we left before the police arrived.”

The protesters said one foreign student’s identification card was confiscated by security guards, leaving him unable to attend lectures and facing possible exclusion from exams.

In the middle of Berlin, the German defense minister is opening a new showroom. The aim is to bring more young people into the Bundeswehr's barracks - but there were a few uninvited guests at the grand opening.

Jörg Jankowsky of the Bundeswehr's career center explained the purpose of a new showroom the German military opened in an unassuming office in the middle of Berlin. It is on the ground floor, near the capital's Unter den Linden boulevard with its fast-food restaurants, fashion shops, and bakeries. In between a shoe shop and a pharmacy, the new military showroom offers free information about career opportunities in the German armed service.

'Advertising death'

Inside the new information center, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen is talking to a group of 10th grade students from a Berlin school, and her handlers don't want the press disturbing them as they have their pictures taken with the politician.