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Mid Ulster and Derry Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaigners unite for Castledawson protest
The protest will demand an end to 'manufacturing for the F-35 fighter jet program, the removal of DUP Education Minister Paul Givan, an end to the arms trade being facilitated to schools, and for the Derry GAA board to support the motion to drop Allianz'
Pictured are some of the protestors at a previous demonstration.
Reporter:
Staff Reporter
05 Nov 2025 10:33 AM
Email:
news@derrynow.com
The Mid Ulster Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Mid Ulster IPSC), along with the Derry IPSC, has announced that it will hold a protest at the gates of Castledawson company Moyola Precision Engineering on Friday, November 7 at 4pm.
The protest will demand an end to 'manufacturing for the F-35 fighter jet program, the removal of DUP Education Minister Paul Givan, an end to the arms trade being facilitated to schools, and for the Derry GAA board to support the motion to drop Allianz'.
The protest will feature the Blanket of Remembrance, an over 140 feet long hand-crocheted memorial, to the thousands of children killed in Gaza by Craftivism for Palestine. Each of its 2,600 squares represents ten child victims.
The protest targets Invest NI-funded company Moyola Precision Engineering 'for its role in manufacturing airframe parts for the F-35 fighter jet, a primary aircraft used by Israel in its ongoing genocide in Gaza'.
Protestors say they also condemn the inclusion of Moyola and other arms manufacturers in the MEGA Student Expo, an event supported by Mid Ulster Council, Invest NI, and the Department for the Economy, which brought companies involved in the arms trade into contact with schoolchildren.
Furthermore, the protest calls for the removal of Paul Givan as Education Minister, citing his 'disgraceful trip to illegally occupied land and whitewashing of UN-confirmed genocide, as well as his public praise for the Israeli Defence Forces, who have murdered tens of thousands of children'.
"Last week Moyola took part in a careers event for school children, in which all the Mid Ulster secondary schools were in attendance. Children were being brought in to be shown this company as a model of opportunity and success. How can a government tell us this is education and aspiration, while these companies are profiting from genocide?" Mid Ulster IPSC spokesperson Saoirse O’Neill said.
"So when Paul Givan stands in a school in East Jerusalem and calls it 'education', and when Moyola stands in front of kids in Mid Ulster calling it 'engineering and opportunity' we have to ask, What exactly are we teaching our children? That you can build weapons used against other children and still be celebrated? That genocide is acceptable so long as it creates jobs? That ministers can act with impunity, using the Department for Education to provide propaganda for the state that has destroyed all schools in Gaza?
"We refuse that. Education should teach empathy. Engineering should build life. Government should represent all of us. We say: Not in our name. Not with our taxes. Not in front of our children.”
Mid Ulster IPSC spokesperson Pádraig MacNiocaill added: “Through InvestNI, nearly £20 million has been handed to five companies in the North that supply parts for the F-35 program. Stormont has also given millions of pounds of rates relief to these very companies.
"The BDS movement is extremely clear that states, companies and institutions connected to the F-35 program are COMPLICIT in Genocide. MLAs, MPs, and councillors must back this call, we need a complete nationwide suspension of all involvement in the program.”
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