No Pride in Prisons to Blockade Weapons Conference

Prison abolitionist organisation No Pride in Prisons will be joining Auckland Peace Action today to blockade the weapons conference at the Viaduct Events Centre.

550 representatives of the world’s largest weapons dealers will gather today in Auckland, but according to Auckland Peace Action and No Pride in Prisons, these dealers have no business here.

“These representatives generate profits from human suffering,” says No Pride in Prisons spokesperson Emilie Rākete.

No Pride in Prisons opposes this conference and is determined to prevent it from happening.

“Weapons bought at this conference will be used by police to murder civilians, to suppress protests against state violence and colonisation, and to perpetuate capitalist imperialism worldwide.”

No Pride in Prisons says that this is not something that the queer community in Aotearoa can ignore. “War is a queer issue. Every time the United States blows up a building filled with civilians or Assad uses chemical weapons, queer people die.”

According to Rākete, “There will be hundreds and thousands of deaths caused by the guns, bullets, and bombs sold at this conference. People living in Tāmaki Makaurau have the responsibility to stop this from happening.”

No Pride in Prisons especially opposes the presence of private prison operators Serco and G4S at the conference. “These two companies are notorious for their human rights violations.”

“Serco runs prisons in New Zealand with conditions so unsafe that even the Department of Corrections is too scared to send vulnerable prisoners there.”

“Just last year a transgender woman was raped in a Serco facility and Serco staff have allegedly been facilitating fights between inmates.”

“These companies are conglomerates of evil,” says Rākete.

“We encourage everybody to come and be a part of shutting this conference down and preventing the dealers from perpetuating war and imperialism.”

“We can do something to stop this and we must.”

ENDS

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