On Friday 14th September at Horseferry Road Magistrates Court, five peace protesters will stand trial for attending an ‘unauthorised’ peace camp in Parliament Square [1]. The ‘No More Fallujahs’ camp was held to mark the second anniversary of the November 2004 US/UK assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah. [2]

This trial follows the trial and convictions of five other peace protestors arrested or reported by the police at the event in October last year including Maya Evans and Milan Rai, the first people to be convicted under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005).

The peace camp - backed by CND, the London Federation of Green Parties and Stop the War – ‘marked the anniversary of the attack on Fallujah in 2004, in which war crimes were committed. Hundreds of Iraqi civilians were killed, health clinics were bombed and white phosphorus - a substance that burns down to the bone – was used as a weapon. [3].

David King, one of those on trial, said: ‘What sort justice is it when peaceful protestors face a criminal record and possibly imprisonment and war criminals are allowed to walk free?’

Genny Bove, on trial for reading out the names of British soldiers who have died in Iraq in a 'Naming the Dead' ceremony in Whitehall during the 'No More Fallujahs' action, said:

"I cannot accept that the peaceful, solemn ceremony I took part in last October to remember those who have died in Iraq was a criminal act. The police were notified (even though their permission was not sought) and they allowed the reading to continue for several hours, which indicates that there was no threat to national security or public safety. The ceremony was quiet and sombre and there were no victims in this alleged crime.

"Shame on the Crown Prosecution Service for bringing this purely
political prosecution under sections of a discredited Act of Parliament which Gordon Brown is reportedly planning to repeal. This is a shocking waste of taxpayers' money. If more attention was paid to preventing larger crimes such as the illegal war in Iraq, and less to stifling the dissent which we are supposed to be able to express freely in a democracy, the world would be a better place."

The trial is one of the first to take place since Gordon Brown, in his first speech to the House of Commons as Prime Minister, signalled his intention to overturn the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act that prevents protests within one kilometre of Parliament. [4]

NOTES:

[1] See full report on 'no more fallujahs' event at  http://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/10/354676.html
full socpa coverage at  http://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/12/358676.html

[2] See  http://www.rememberfallujah.org/

[3] November 2004 saw the start of the second, and most devastating, offensive in Fallujah. Many hundreds of civilians were killed, four fifths of the city’s population left the city and half the city’s housing was severely damaged or rendered uninhabitable. Hundreds of British troops were redeployed to support the attack on Fallujah, during the attack US forces committed numerous war crimes, including the imposition of a strict night-time shoot-to-kill curfew (The Times, 12 November 2004, see  http://tinyurl.com/8qh7n ) and the bombing of a health clinic, killing 59 people (The Nation, 13 December 2004, see  http://tinyurl.com/cfq6m )

[4] See  http://tinyurl.com/36qlx6