A group of activists waiting outside the court in Dumbarton, Scotland, have just welcomed Angie Zelter and Brian Quail to freedom. The pair, dubbed the ‘Trident Two’, were imprisoned for refusing to accept restrictive bail conditions which forbade them travelling within 100 metres of the Trident nuclear bases in Coulport or Faslane. They were arrested two weeks ago, alongside three other activists, for blocking the road outside the Coulport base as part of the Trident Ploughshares week of disruption.
Today, the court reversed its decision to restrict Angie and Brian’s freedom of movement, instead granting them standard bail conditions. While no official explanation has been given for this retreat, the decision comes after mounting pressure from the public over this infringement of Zelter and Quail’s right to protest at the bases. Their incarceration was widely covered in the Scottish national news, and a petition calling for their release has gained more than 4000 signatures.
Trident Ploughshares has been protesting weekly at the Trident nuclear bases since 1998, but in a statement, Zelter linked the significance of their imprisonment specifically to the recently finalised Global Nuclear Ban Treaty; “at this time it is even more important that we stand at the gates of the places where those weapons are held and demand that the government listen to the majority of the world and start the process of disarmament.”