Long-time Peace Campaigner, Maria Gallastegui was arrested this afternoon at the Cenotaph War memorial in Whitehall, London.

She was taking part in a 229 minute vigil to mark the deaths of 229 soldiers killed so far in Afghanistan along with two other men.

After around an hour two officers, who had been waiting close by in a police van, stepped out onto the street and approached the three campaigners. A short while later an officer phoned into his station and a very short while after that the three were arrested and taken away.

This statement, before the arrest, was issued by Maria earlier.
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IMMEDIATE PRESS RELEASE
Wednesday 4 November 2009

THREE PROTEST AT CENOTAPH OVER AFGHANISTAN WAR
229 minute silent protest – one minute for each British war dead

At 2pm this afternoon, three people began a protest at the Cenotaph, the monument to British war dead in Whitehall, London, about the escalating war in Afghanistan.

Holding a banner saying ‘End Afghanistan corporate war. Honour our troops. Bring them home’, the three intend to remain for 229 minutes (3 hours and 49 minutes). Each minute represents one British soldier killed since the conflict began in 2001. The protest will be carried out in silence.

This year alone, 92 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan. (1).

The protest will also honour the many thousands of Afghanistan civilian deaths as a direct result of the war (2) with indiscriminate airstrikes accounting for a large increase in deaths of Afghans since 2006 (3).

NOTES

1.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/sep/17/afghanistan-casualties-dead-wounded-british-data#data

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_of_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282001%E2%80%93present%29#Aggregation_of_estimates

3.  http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/09/07/afghanistan-civilian-deaths-airstrikes

4. See  http://peacestrike.org.uk/ for more information