Angie Zelter (born 5 June 1951) is a British activist and the founder of a number of international campaign groups, including ''
Trident Ploughshares
Trident Ploughshares (originally named Trident Ploughshares 2000) is an activist anti-nuclear weapons group, founded in 1998 with the aim of ''"beating swords into ploughshares"'' (taken from the Book of Isaiah). This is specifically by attempting ...
'' and the ''International Women's
Peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
Service''. Zelter is known for non-violent
direct action
Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...
campaigns and has been arrested over 100 times in Belgium, Canada, England, Malaysia, Norway, Poland and Scotland, serving 16 prison sentences.
Zelter is a self-professed 'global citizen'.
Life
In the 1980s Zelter founded the Snowball Campaign,
which encouraged mass
civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...
with participants each cutting one strand of a fence around US military bases in the UK, then waiting to be arrested. During the campaign, which lasted three years, there were around 2,500 arrests and many of the activists were sent to jail for non-payment of fines.
Caroline Lucas
Caroline Patricia Lucas (born 9 December 1960) is a British politician who has twice led the Green Party of England and Wales and has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brighton Pavilion since the 2010 general election. She was re-elected ...
, future
Green party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...
leader and
MP was involved in the campaign, and poet
Oliver Bernard
Oliver Bernard (6 December 1925 – 1 June 2013) was an English poet and translation, translator. He is perhaps best known for translating Arthur Rimbaud into English as part of the Penguin Classics collection.
Bernard was born in London, to t ...
was sent to prison.
In 1996 she was part of a group that disarmed a
BAE Hawk
The BAE Systems Hawk is a British single-engine, jet-powered advanced trainer aircraft. It was first flown at Dunsfold, Surrey, in 1974 as the Hawker Siddeley Hawk, and subsequently produced by its successor companies, British Aerospace and B ...
Jet, ZH955, causing £1.5million damage and preventing it from being exported to
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
where it would have been used to attack
East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...
. She was acquitted for this action in a victory which forced the issue of arms control onto the mainstream agenda.
Along with American Ellen Moxley and Ulla Røder from Denmark, she became known as one of the Trident Three of the
Trident Ploughshares
Trident Ploughshares (originally named Trident Ploughshares 2000) is an activist anti-nuclear weapons group, founded in 1998 with the aim of ''"beating swords into ploughshares"'' (taken from the Book of Isaiah). This is specifically by attempting ...
, after the women succeeded in entering Maytime, a floating trident sonar testing station in
Loch Goil
Loch Goil; ( gd, Loch Goil) is a small sea loch forming part of the coast of the Cowal peninsula in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The sea loch is entirely within the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park.
It is an arm of Loch Long. The v ...
, and damaged 20 computers and other electronic equipment and circuit boxes, cut an antenna, jammed machinery with superglue, sand, and syrup and tipped logbooks, files, computer hardware, and papers overboard.
In December 2001 the Trident Three were awarded the
Right Livelihood Award
The Right Livelihood Award is an international award to "honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today." The prize was established in 1980 by German-Swedish philanthropist Jakob v ...
.
Between 2001 and 2005 she was active in many actions with the International Solidarity Movement and other organisations designed to protect the Palestinians on the West Bank against the violence of the Israeli army and of the illegal settlements which made their lives increasingly difficult. The Israeli government eventually refused to allow her to return.
In March 2012, the South Korean police arrested Angie Zelter for obstructing the construction of the controversial
Jeju-do Naval Base
The Jeju Civilian-Military Complex Port for Beautiful Tourism (Hangul: ; Hanja:) or Jeju Naval Base (Hangul: ; Hanja:) is a joint civil and Republic of Korea Navy base constructed by the South Korean government in Gangjeong village on the souther ...
.
In September 2014, Zelter received in Istanbul the
Hrant Dink
Hrant Dink ( hy, Հրանդ Տինք; Western ; 15 September 1954 – 19 January 2007) was a Turkish-Armenian intellectual, editor-in-chief of ''Agos'', journalist and columnist.
As editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspa ...
Award for her fight against nuclear weapons.
Extinction Rebellion
During the April 2019
Extinction Rebellion
Extinction Rebellion (abbreviated as XR) is a global environmental movement, with the stated aim of using nonviolent civil disobedience to compel government action to avoid tipping points in the climate system, biodiversity loss, and the risk o ...
London occupations Zelter was arrested on Waterloo Bridge and in Parliament Square, becoming the first activist to be prosecuted. She was given a
conditional discharge
A discharge is a type of sentence imposed by a court whereby no punishment is imposed.
An absolute discharge is an unconditional discharge whereby the court finds that a crime has technically been committed but that any punishment of the defend ...
in June 2019, after arguing in court that humans faced mass extinction unless governments implemented wide-ranging changes.
Zelter was one of more than 1,400 protesters arrested during the October 2019 'Extinction Rebellion Autumn Uprising' two-week campaign in London. She was charged under Section 14 of the
Public Order Act 1986
The Public Order Act 1986 (c 64) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates a number of public order offences. They replace similar common law offences and parts of the Public Order Act 1936. It implements recommendations , pleaded guilty, and was ordered to pay a £460 fine, £85 costs and £46 surcharge.
In 2021 she published a book detailing her work between 1982 and 2021 with the title "Activism for Life" (Luath Press Limited ).
See also
*
List of peace activists
This list of peace activists includes people who have proactively advocated diplomatic, philosophical, and non-military resolution of major territorial or ideological disputes through nonviolent means and methods. Peace activists usually work ...
References
External links
Trident Ploughshares*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zelter, Angie
1951 births
Living people
British anti-war activists
English female criminals
British anti–nuclear weapons activists
British women activists