FIVE peace campaigners were arrested yesterday after blockading the Trident nuclear weapons base at Coulport in Scotland.

The five locked themselves together using concrete blocks and metal tubes at 7am across the access road leading to the base.

Police were forced to use cutting gear to separate them after they blocked the road to the base for two and a half hours.

The action was part of the Trident Ploughshares nuclear disarmament international camp taking place this week near Coulport.

Those arrested included veteran disarmament campaigner Brian Quail, 79, Angie Zelter, 66, a peace and environment campaigner from Knighton in Wales, and Sam Donaldson, 29, a community worker from Hull.

The Spanish campaigners arrested were Women in Black activist Almudena Izquierdo Olmo, 60, from Madrid, and Alternativa Antimilitarista activist Juan Carlos Navarro Diaz, 46, from the Canary Islands, an activist with .

Last week, the United Nations introduced a Nuclear Ban Treaty in its attempts to halt nuclear weapons proliferation but British government refused to take part.
Ms Zelter said: “British nuclear weapons are illegal and now there is a United Nations Ban Treaty. It is imperative that all of us get involved in non-violent nuclear disarmament as our government is engaged in state terrorism.”

Ms Izquierdo said: “We demand our government, as part of Nato, sign and ratify the UN Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty in order to prohibit nuclear weapons from entering foreign military bases and ports in Spain.”

The international protest camp was set up on Saturday, and will remain until July 18. Protesters include a delegation from Finland.

[email protected]