Four peace campaigners arrested at drone protest

Four people have been arrested for protesting at RAF Waddington over the use of armed drones, controlled from the base, that have killed or injured many civilians.

The group: ' End The Drone Wars' were Pax Christi executive member Chris Cole, 51, from Oxford, Katharina Karcher, 30, from Coventry, Gary Eagling, 52, from Nottingham and Penny Walker, 64, from Leicester. They are currently in police custody.

Police said the four were arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass after they cut through the wire at the RAF base in Lincolnshire.

In a statement ithe group said: "We come to RAF Waddington today to say a clear 'no' to the growing normalisation and acceptability of drone warfare. Thanks to the marketing of drone war as 'risk free', 'precise' and above all 'humanitarian', war has been rehabilitated and accepted as virtually normal by those who see little or nothing of the impact on the ground thousands of miles away."

The RAF said: "We fully respect people's right to protest peacefully within the law but have a duty to protect public property and to ensure that we meet operational needs.

"MOD has a duty to maintain security at all defence installations and uses all lawful means to do so. RAF Waddington, like all large airfields, has a large perimeter fence that is protected by a variety of security measures. Whilst some protesters did breach the perimeter fence, Reaper operations continued completely unaffected".

In his blog 'The dirty consequences of our clean wars' Chris Cole outlines the growth in the use of drones over the past five years and their devastating consequences, largely unreported, on innocent civilians: http://dronewars.net/2014/12/05/the-dirty-consequences-of-our-clean-wars/