Job Done! 222 people pay Roger's Fine

gloucs | protests | news report Thursday March 15, 2012 00:26 by Monica Jones monicaseejay at yahoo dot co dot uk

Veteran peace activist Roger Franklin (84) was fined £460 in Bristol Magistrates' for refusing to fill in the 2011 Census form, because the census was run by arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin.  (LM is the world's second-largest arms corporation.  Its US subsidiary trained interrogators for the notorious Guantanamo prison camp.  Its weaponry was heavily used in the massacre of civilians carried out in Gaza in 2008-9.)

In an act of solidarity and protest, 222 people came forward to pay off Roger's fine, mostly in tiny amounts of £2 or less. They sent dozens of powerful statements of solidarity.  Here are just three of them:

“The world has truly gone mad.  It is Lockheed Martin who should be on trial ... Roger Franklin should, if you believe in honours, be given an award.” 

“I am appalled by the decision to use Lockheed Martin to run the last census.  Let arms manufacturers never be given
business in this way ever again.  They must be closed down and alternative, peaceful, forms of employment be found for
their employees.” David Warr.

 “The courageous stand taken by Roger Franklin and John Marjoram honours both them and the whole peace
movement.  Just as a government which awards a £150 million Census contract to merchants of death and murder shames
our nation and its people.”  Glen Burrows, Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers Union.

Roger Franklin's co-defendant John Marjoram, who is Mayor of Stroud, goes to trial in May, having entered a not-guilty plea to the charge of failing to complete the census form.