#dsei

This September, London is hosting one of the world's biggest arms fairs, DSEI. We need your help to shut it down before it starts.

Israel has a massive presence at DSEI. They use the mass murder of Palestinians as a selling point, calling weapons “battle tested”. The Palestinian voice is clear: until there are sanctions against Israel, we need to take matters into our own hands.

If they can’t get the weapons in, then they can’t have an arms fair. We are kicking off this “week of action” to block the set-up with a day to Stop Arming Israel! With music, workshops, and bucket-loads of food, we are using our creativity to shut down their destruction.

When: Monday 4th September 2017, 10am-8:30pm Where: near the Excel Centre, in the green space on Royal Albert Way, E16 (opposite the Premier Inn) https://goo.gl/maps/jHU9XdQ6N5P2 Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/250690978765119/

Programme for the day:

We've got a fun, packed programme to keep you engaged throughout the day. We'll have a welcome tent, a kids space and a portaloo - you can come for the whole day or just pop in! We're meeting in a green space near the Excel Centre https://goo.gl/maps/jHU9XdQ6N5P2 

10.00 Arrive! 'Why are we here? An introduction to the issues & groups present.' 11.00 Workshop: Social cleansing and colonialism: Custom House to Palestine 11.30 Workshop: Learn to dabke 12.30 Picnic Lunch *please bring food to share!* 13.30 Workshop: Banner making 15.00 'Why are we here? An introduction to the issues & groups present. 15.30 Sheffield People's Tribunal 16.00 Workshop: BDS 101 17.00 Discussion: Why Cultural Boycott? 18.00 FOOTBALL GAME! [Facebook event for the football] 19.00-20.30 Live music and DJs featuring...Dave Randall (Faithless), Katiba 5, Some F*cking People & Efa Thomas [Facebook event for the gig]

How to get involved:

Come along! Bring friends, food, and Palestinian flags if you have them.

Please bring suncream if it's hot, a raincoat if it's rainy etc as we will only have a few small gazebos for shelter.

More information:

Bharat Forge-Windracers MoU signing ceremony at DSEI, UK. DSEI 2025 -Bharat Forge and Windracers Forge Strategic MoU: September 12, 2025, In a groundbreaking move set to enhance India’s UAV capabilities, Bharat Forge Limited (BFL), India’s largest forging and advanced engineering group, has announced a strategic collaboration with Windracers Limited, a leading UK-based manufacturer of the world’s…

“A body convulses on a table, with broken bones poking from a stump of torn flesh below the knee, one arm gruesomely peppered with gunshot wounds, as men in military uniforms look on approvingly. ‘He bleeds, he moves, he breathes, he has a pulse,’ says the smiling sales rep. ‘His eyes even react to light. We have a canine version too, which barks and whines – and it comes with interchangeable injured limbs.’

“I am perusing the medical zone of Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI), Europe’s biggest arms fair, which takes place every two years in the Excel convention centre in east London. It is a sprawling supermarket of modern warfare, where the world’s armies come to buy the latest AI-guided missiles and tanks, inspect giant warships moored in the Royal Docks, and queue to take a turn sitting in the cockpits of fighter jets ...

“‘This year feels much busier than usual,’ one bomb salesman tells me, standing by a gleaming rack of cone-shaped warheads, polished like trophies in a glass cabinet. ‘It seems war is back in a big way. People are looking to stock up.’ Whereas attendees of this great murderous bazaar may once have felt sheepish, they now proudly march through the entrance gates with their heads held high ...

“At the Israel pavilion, one company is promoting its ‘high-penetration wireless communication for indoor robotics and drones’, showing videos of drones swooping through bombed-out buildings, looking for prey like a swarm of deadly mosquitoes. Brazil features a stall offering ‘ammunition, bombs, rockets and fuses’, with a bowl of complimentary sweets, while a rifle company in the US section tries to lure punters with a free calendar of busty models draped across its anti-aircraft guns. (‘It’s been approved by all our female staff,’ the man at the desk assures me.) ...

“‘They all have onboard AI cameras,’ says Maj Matthew McGarvey-Miles, lead of the army warfighting experiment, a flagship programme where the latest technology is developed. ‘They can identify targets and track them automatically’ ... The nature of these unmanned weapons – and the kind of remote fighters the army is looking for – is having a knock-on effect on how the physical controls are designed ...