An arms fair due to be held on the banks of the Mersey has provoked a political storm in Liverpool.
Companies implicated in human rights violations in Afghanistan, Yemen and Gaza are due to speak and exhibit at the Europe 2021 Electronic Warfare conference next month at the city’s council flagship conference centre, Exhibition Centre Liverpool.
After political protest and COVID-19 scuppered the arms fair’s original event planned at the same venue in November last year, organisers tried to move to Seville, Spain, but faced further protest there. Local activists accused the authorities of turning the city into “an accomplice of the death industry”. Seville City Council backed down and cancelled the event, after “assessing the negative impact of being linked to a controversial meeting that has generated social opposition”, the Spanish newspaper Diario de Sevilla reported.
