The Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC) is organizing a “peaceful faithful vigil” outside the EY Centre in Ottawa on Wednesday May 27 starting at 4:30 pm. It is part of their work to show “resistance to weapons and violence”.
Military equipment is used to attack human rights defenders around the world. Armoured vehicles, assault rifles, helicopters, drones, and surveillance technology are the tools that directly affect the safety of defenders.
These “military goods” can include armoured vehicles used to evict farming communities in Honduras, assault rifles to kill defenders in Indonesia, helicopters for “internal security operations” that target defenders in the Philippines and surveil national strike protests in Colombia, armed drones to kill journalists in Palestine, and surveillance technology to track the movement of activists in Mexico.
These tools of repression are often marketed at arms fairs in France, the United Kingdom, Spain, and at CANSEC in Ottawa, Canada.
PBI-Canada continues to make the links between attacks against human rights defenders and the production of military goods, their marketing at arms fairs, and the rules that allow these goods to be exported.
Addressing the supply chain that feeds violence against defenders is an essential component of holistic protective accompaniment and making space for peace, the core mandate of Peace Brigades International globally.
