Peace Strike Campaigning for Peace

#PRESS RELEASE#   00.45 Tuesday 20th July 2010 Parliament Square
“Democracy Village goes on STRIKE!”

“Concerned Citizens”at Democracy Village on Parliament Square state in open defiance of the pending eviction notice that they fully intend to carry on with their demand to “Bring Our Soldiers Home Alive!”

The majority of the people in this country DO NOT SUPPORT THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN!

Young people want a future free from war and deprivation. We now have a whole generation of disenfranchised youth who are disillusioned with a government that spends our money on illegal wars of aggression and illegal occupations.

We refuse to comply with laws that prevent our message going out to the people from Parliament Square, the historical home of protest. People only gather together to risk arrest and possible imprisonment if their concerns are of the utmost urgency.

Therefore to go “ON STRIKE for PEACE” to save life is our duty and can never be illegal if the underlying cause is justified.

On 2nd October Maria won a case in Westminster Magistrates Court against a charge under the Public Order Act. She was arrested for ‘insulting behaviour’ when she climbed up the Churchill Statue in Parliament Square with placards highlighting the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka held in atrocious conditions in military camps. Maria was charged after a complaint by Nicholas Soames MP, Winston Churchill’s grandson, who happened to be driving into the Houses of Parliament at the time.

Maria represented herself and successfully argued that any offence caused to Nicholas Soames was unintentional and that references on her placards to nazi concentration camps was legitimate for campaigning purposes.

See the story of Maria on the statue from July

Over 30 people gathered on a rainy Sunday to walk for peace from Westminster Cathedral (top picture) to the Edith Cavell Statue, just north of Trafalgar Square (bottom picture).  Edith Cavell was a nurse and humanitarian, who was executed by firing squad in Germany on 12th October 1915 for helping soldiers of both sides to escape the squalor of World War One. 

The campaigners, from all faiths and none, were joined by Brian Haw and David Gould, whose step-daughter Helen Katherine Jones was killed on a Piccadilly line train at Kings Cross during the bombing of the London underground in 2005. They stopped on the way at Downing Street where a petition demanding a peace plan was handed into Gordon Brown and at St Martin’s in the Fields in Trafalgar Square (middle picture). See the Indymedia report for some great photos of the event by Terry.

The first of a regular monthly peace procession, calling for an end to war and occupation, will take place on Sunday 5 October 2008 in London.

The peace procession will start at Westminster Cathedral, stopping at Parliament Square and Downing Street, finishing at St Martins in the Fields, Trafalgar Square. The time of the procession will be announced shortly. Everyone is welcome to come and take part in the procession – it is for all faiths and none, for everyone who cares about humanity and peace and wishes to demand an end to the destruction and suffering caused by our own country’s actions.

• 1.30 meet outside Westminster Cathedral on piazza. Join in prayers for peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.
• Depart 2pm
• Proceed to Westminster Abbey, and Methodist Central Hall, then on to Parliament Square
• Group photo of ‘petition’ written on a roll of wallpaper, with signatures from all over the world.
• 3pm – 3.30pm Present ‘ We Demand a Peace Plan ‘ petition to Downing Street. This petition is to highlight the point that there is no peace plan for the Middle East because one does not exist.
• We then continue on to Trafalgar Square and gather at the Edith Cavell statue, near St Martins-in Field for a vigil.

We hope you will be able to come along….

Next procession….Sunday 2nd November 2008.

We demand a REAL peace plan for the Middle East NOW!

We say:
NO to the illegal occupation of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan
NO to the funding of war and occupation
NO to the arms trade that fuels conflict
NO to the suffering and loss of life that war creates

We will be organising an online petition and a regular peace procession from Westminster Cathedral.