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Student Jo arrested in anti-nuclear blockade
Katie Davies
A HAMPSTEAD woman has been arrested after joining a naval base blockade against the government's £25billion plan to renew Trident.
Oxford University student and former Hampstead Comprehensive pupil Jo Tyabji was arrested after joining her friend Anna Wolmuth from West Hampstead in the year-long action at Faslane Naval Base in Scotland on Sunday.
The base is home to nuclear submarines and has had protesters camped outside since last October.
Several arrests have already been made at the site where protesters chain themselves together to block the road.
Ms Tyabji, 21, from Mercers Road, Tufnell Park, said: "We were joined by 50 academics and spent the morning discussing the issue.
"I was arrested alongside 17 of the lecturers. We moved on the roads with chains linking up between our waists and two people at the end were chained to drainpipes.
"We lasted six hours before being arrested, which is the longest it has lasted here.
"It was never my aim to be arrested but it was a consequence I had to accept. My mum was worried but she supports my position and the police treated us well.
"I first heard about it through one of the other blockaders at a meeting in university.
"People believe we need nuclear weapons to make the world safer and we think it is safer without them. We believe in different ways of achieving peace.
"One of the major problems in the way the government has decided on the Trident replacement is that it has not been adequately debated.
"I have a gut reaction to the use of them. But there are also implications on our relations with other countries and it is costing money.
"These costs come at a time when we need to spend money on climate change or the deeply-rooted problems of the NHS.
"Gordon Brown this week said education for all would cut out fundamentalism - that would make the world a safer place rather than facing threats with this greater force."
Anna Wolmuth, also 21 and an Oxford University student, is a former South Hampstead School pupil and lives on Menelik Road.
"I have been involved in anti-war protests since school," she said. "This protest is really important. Tony Blair made his announcement without even considering scrapping Trident.
"It is important that people let him know he can't just do that. We are not going to just let things happen that cost £25billion that we plan to never use."
The girls are planning another protest at the base during the summer with students from the rest of Europe .
katie.davies@hamhigh.co.uk
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