Day of Events in Edinburgh Saturday 26th February 2005

With just three weeks to the worldwide `Bring the troops home` demonstrations on Saturday March 19th there was a full and interesting programme of events in Edinburgh this Saturday. Lunchtime saw the usual `Women in Black` vigil at the East End of Princes Street with an Edinburgh Stop the War stall running about the same time. Women in Black was started in 1988 by Israeli and Palestinian women in Jerusalem protesting against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The International Women in Black movement was awarded the Millennium peace prize by the United Nations in 2001. Women in Black stand for every victim of war – civilian and soldier, near and distant.

There was an afternoon talk at Edinburgh University by Anas Altikriti of the MAB (Muslim Association of Britain) and the RESPECT coalition. His talk entitled `Iraq – The Myth of Liberation and Democracy` was given to an audience of about 50 in lecture theatre A of the David Hume Tower. Mr Altikriti described how Iraq had an excellent health care system in the 1960’s, ‘70s, and early 80’s. In fact the health and education system was the envy of the Arab world. In 1977 there was a report of a number of third world countries which were on their way to becoming first world countries, one was Algeria and the other was Iraq. Anas was born in 1968 and his family fled Iraq because of the repression of the Western backed Ba’thist regime and settled in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England. He found growing up on Tyneside in the 1970’s difficult because of the lesser acceptance of immigrants in those days. Culturally and racially he found it tricky to fit in. People would ask him at school why he didn’t go home and when he went back to his family after school he would ask his father why they couldn’t return to Iraq. His father answered, “Because the regime is evil” explaining to Anas that the West backed it in spite of its bad human rights record. He mentioned a 1989 book, which lists 223 attempts to overthrow Saddam Hussein. When the Kurds and Shia were encouraged to overthrow Saddam after the first gulf war they were close to succeeding until the USA changed its policy and withdrew their support for the uprising thus enabling Saddam to retain power. The 1980’s saw a brutal and bloody war between Iraq and Iran which claimed over a million lives and which was fuelled by the West who armed both sides. Then in 1990 Saddam was lured into invading Kuwait, which led to the first Gulf war.

He went on to talk about the massacre at Halabja in 1988 when Saddam’s poison gas attack killed up to 5,000 people. Many people tried to bring the media’s attention to the atrocity but to little avail. Anas was part of a demonstration outside the Iraqi embassy in Queen’s Gate, London that drew 300-400 protesters. The police broke up the demo with considerable vigour. The media only really discovered the crime of Halabja some 15 years after it happened when they were building the case for war on Iraq in 2003.

He went on to deal with the issue of the sanctions on Iraq which lasted from August 1990 to March 2003 – some 12 and a half years. Some people in the West ask why the Iraqis aren’t grateful after their `liberation`. The answer is because we killed them in their thousands every month for over a decade by the brutal sanctions regime. As many as one and a half million people were killed during this awful period – mostly children. The sanctions were supposed to prevent Saddam from obtaining WMD but they hurt the ordinary Iraqis far more than the ruling elite. He gave an example of what it meant for ordinary Iraqi folk to be under such a blockade. He recounted the story of a young boy who went in to a shop, bought an egg and then bumped into someone and dropped the egg, breaking it. The boy carefully scraped the egg and its fragments of shell off the floor and when asked why he should go to so much trouble over just one egg he answered because if he didn’t bring this egg home his family would starve.

The myth about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was just that – a myth. Former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter discovered after a few months that there was little in the way of WMD in Iraq but his reports were constantly shelved. He spoke out just before the last war on Iraq to say that 90-95% of Iraq’s weapons had been destroyed by UNSCOM in its 7-year inspection period of 1991-1998 and was vilified and smeared for his pains.

The occupation has brought in its wake things that did not previously exist in Iraq like suicide bombings, terrorism and kidnappings. Anas feels that the horrific images of Abu Ghraib seen thus far are only the tip of an iceberg. He suggested only 2% of the photos and video clips available have been shown so far and the torture was not just the work of a few subordinates but went much higher up the chain of command. Regarding the elections he said that these benefited George Bush and Tony Blair far more than they did ordinary Iraqis.


There were then a number of points from the floor including one about the lack of media coverage of issues like DU (depleted uranium) and the dreadful consequences of the sanctions. One speaker made the point that some 2 years after the war the electricity and water are still not fixed and amazingly in a country with the world’s second largest supplies of oil there are mile long queues for petrol! The speaker also said the Iraqis have not lost their sense of humour when they say: “We want electricity in our houses - not up our arses!”
The issue of DU was raised by another contributor from the floor who said how toxic it was yet how little media attention it received.
Mr Altikriti thanked the audience for coming on such a chilly day and was warmly applauded. He is a spokesperson for MAB whose website is: www.mabonline.net



There was another talk that evening in Edinburgh, `Civil Liberties and the war on terror`. This was held in St Augustine’s Church on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh (near the Central Library). The event was sponsored by SACC (Scotland Against Criminalizing Communities), MAB (Muslim Association of Britain), Edinburgh Stop the War coalition, the Islamic Society of Edinburgh University and Stop Political Terror.

Zahid Ali of Palestine Solidarity chaired the talk and the first speaker was Angela McCormick of G8 alternatives. She made the point that the amount of overseas aid given by Britain had actually fallen from 0.5% of GDP in 1983 to the current 0.4% of GDP. This is only about half of the recommended target of 0.7%. The G8, the group of the world’s richest countries will meet in Gleneagles in July. They and their policies of keeping the rest of the world in poverty will be met by large protests. The press will label the protesters as `terrorists`, `anarchists`, `wombles`, `troublemakers` etc. Angela was charged with breach of the peace at a recent anti-war protest in Glasgow; she feels that it is Bush and Blair who should be arrested for breach of the peace for starting the horrific war on Iraq. She also mentioned the possibility of the police using excessive force in dealing with demonstrators including the possible use of water cannon.

The second speaker was GP Dr Adnan Siddiqui who is director of the Stop Political terror campaign. He spoke of the case of Babar Ahmad who was arrested and assaulted by 6 Anti-terrorist police officers in his own home in front of his wife in December 2003. He was left with over 50 injuries two of which were serious. He was released five days later without charge. In August 2004 he was rearrested on a New Extradition treaty. Under this treaty he is unable to contest allegations in a UK court. He has been labelled as being part of Al Qaeda by the media before his trial began. He is thought to have little chance of a fair trail in a US court. Dr Siddiqui opined that Babar was singled out not because he was a terrorist but because he was an activist.
For more information on Babar's case please see: www.freebabarahmad.com

Dr Siddiqui said that there were high profile scare stories in the run up to war like the Ricin plot, the arrests of Muslims in North Edinburgh, tanks at Heathrow airport etc but afterwards any retractions or apologies were very low key and easily missed.
He spoke of the racist nature of much of the election campaigning so far with Blair and Howard trying to outdo each other on issues like immigration. In the USA though Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice had reached high positions in the US government, they do not represent ordinary black people. Media commentators often speak of Belmarsh prison in London as `Britain’s Guantanamo` but this is misleading as it (and Wood Hill prison) and its practices actually predate Guantanamo. He finished by saying that we must all, Muslim and non-Muslim, stand firm for justice.

The next speaker was Ashfaq Ahmad, the father of Babar Ahmad who faces extradition to the US. He told of how badly Babar has been treated and urged people to write to their MPs. Babar’s wife who said how flimsy the evidence against her husband was, it includes a tourist brochure dating back to the 1970’s, which is supposedly a list of targets for a terrorist attack, followed Mr Ahmad. She said that she was really surprised that such a thing could have happened to her family and that one day she would speak to an audience in Edinburgh. She thanked SACC (Scotland Against Criminalising Communities) for their support.

Richard Haley of SACC spoke next; he said he felt honoured to sit next to Angela.
Richard said that asylum hearings should not be done behind closed doors. Tony Blair says all the new legislation is necessary, as safety must come before civil liberties. Blair and Charles Clarke (the Home Secretary) are trying to get the new law through in a few days – the idea is that if it is not rushed through then it won’t pass at all. If something is seen as a national emergency it will get passed with little opposition. He said that many MPs are more scared of the party whips than they are of their own constituents. Richard said that Britain is now sadly a country that disregards human rights. Blair intends to turn judges into rubber stamps. The Bill had its second reading in the House of commons last Wednesday and will be debated in the house on Monday 28th. Blair wants us to think that we are powerless. The bill will then go to the House of Lords where there will likely be objections thus sending it back to the Commons.



There were points from the floor including one about long time protester in Parliament Square Brian Haw. Brian has been on a one-man vigil for Iraq for 3 and a half years now and is continually threatened with eviction. He sleeps in the Square 24 hours a day and jokingly says his office hours are `0700 to 0700`. Anyone who would like to send him a letter or post card of support can actually write to him at: Brian Haw, Parliament Square, London SW1. Another speaker from the floor spoke of his experience as an illegal immigrant in the United States. He (a white man) was travelling in a car with a black man. The car had a couple of stickers in the rear window saying `Freedom for Palestine` and `No Blood for Oil`. The police pulled the car over and told the white man to move on even though he was an illegal and they then arrested the black man who was not released until 5 days later.
The evening meeting broke up around 10pm.


There is much activism and many people are working for justice and peace. The media of course is not interested in peace, as they love their wars. Anti-war demonstrations are either negatively reported or more often than not simply not reported at all.
There will be a Global day of protests against the occupation of Iraq on Saturday March 19th. This is a day of opposition not just to the current unlawful subjugation of the Iraqi people but also against the Bush administration’s plans to attack other countries notably Iran and or Syria, North Korea and others. While the anti-war movement has lost some of its momentum since the heady days of February 2003 there could and should be huge outpourings of public protest against the dangerously aggressive policies of George Bush and the so-called `crazies` along with their effective lap dog Tony Blair.
Let’s all make our voices heard on March 19th. In Britain there will demonstrations in central London at 1.00pm and in central Glasgow at 12.00 noon. For more details please see www.stopwar.org.uk


8 labelled photos of the day’s activities are attached.










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