Lush, Oxford staged a protest on Saturday 1st June on Cornmarket Street against the use of drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Lush, the cosmetics chain which has a shop on Cornmarket, alleges the “military targets [of drones] are individuals who have been blacklisted by the US or UK agencies for displaying suspicious activity.” The protest formed part of a wider campaign against drone strikes organised by Lush and human rights charity, Reprieve.
The demonstration took the form of a flash mob ‘die-in’, performed by eight campaigners.
The sound of a drone in flight was played through a megaphone, whilst performers who appeared to be ordinary shoppers dropped to the floor as though stricken by a missile. “Each campaigner was drawn around in chalk by a fellow performer, indicating that every dead body killed by a drone is someone’s loved one,” Lush Oxford explained.
Rowan Parkes, the organiser of the protest, said, “Raising awareness about drones is particularly important to me because of the child fatalities they have caused, and the psychological impact they are having on children… and [their] parents.”
