NAMING THE DEAD: MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AGAINST THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

On the 2nd anniversary of the April 2004 siege of Fallujah, join this unauthorised demonstration in Parliament Square to remember the Iraqi dead and resist the occupation of Iraq.

NAMING THE DEAD: MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AGAINST THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ
on the 2nd anniversary of the April 2004 siege of Fallujah.

12 noon, Sunday 2 April, Parliament Square.

Organised by the Mass Action Group and supported by Nadje al-Ali, Anglican Pacifist Fellowship, Pax Christi, Chumbawamba, Maya Evans, Hastings Against
War, Iraq Occupation Focus, Ewa Jasiewicz, London Catholic Worker, Caroline Lucas MEP, Movement for the Abolition of War, Harold Pinter, Milan Rai, Sami
Ramadani, Mark Thomas, Voices UK, Jo Wilding, the Wrexham Peace and Justice Forum, Haifa Zangana.

"We buried many in the stadium for football until it became full. When you are burying you cannot stay long because [the Marines] will just shoot you" - Iraqi doctor working in Fallujah, April 2004

Remembering Fallujah
On 2 April 2004 US forces sealed off the Iraqi city of Fallujah in what became the first of two major assaults on the city. At least 572 civilians - including over 300 women and children - were killed in the subsequent siege (see www.rememberfallujah.org for more info).

Fighter bombers were used to attack residential areas, US snipers targeted ambulances and at least one US battalion had 'orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not' (New York Times, 14 April).

Since then, numerous other Iraqi towns and cities have been attacked by US-led forces for whom "mass detentions and indis-criminate torture appear to be the main tools" (Financial Times, 29 June 05). Thousands of Iraqis have been killed and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes. Hospitals
have been attacked and white phosphorus used as a weapon. Unmanned Predator aircraft are now attacking targets in Iraq and Afghanistan "almost every day" (AP, 12 Dec 05).

Resisting Occupation
On Sunday 2 April 2006 hundreds of anti-war and peace activists - including Jo Wilding, who personally witnessed US war crimes in Fallujah in April 2004, and Maya Evans, who last Decemeber became the first person to be convicted of participating in an "unauthorised" demonstration within 1km of Parliament - will be gathering in Parliament Square for a mass act of civil disobedience, reading the names of 1,000 Iraqis who have died as a result of the invasion and occupation and demanding:

. an immediate end to the US/UK military occupation of Iraq
. massive reparations and debt cancellation so that Iraqis can rebuild their country free from foreign interference
. prosecution of those responsible for war crimes

PLEASE JOIN THEM. Wear black if possible and come prepared for a long ceremony and possible arrest.

PLEASE NOTE: This is an "unauthorised" demonstration within 1km of Parliament. Under the new restrictions on protest contained in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (April 2005) participation in such an event is a criminal offence punishable by a fine of up to £1000. For more info come to the legal briefing or check back here shortly. There will be post action support for anyone arrested.

A Nonviolent Direct Action Workshop & Legal Briefing will take place on Saturday 1 April at The Front Studio, Diorama 1, 34 Osnaburgh St, London NW1. (tube Great Portland St). Times: 11.30am-4.30pm (NVDA workshop); 4.30pm-5.30pm (legal briefing). The workshop will be run by Seeds for Change (www.seedsforchange.org.uk).

IF YOU CAN'T MAKE THE WORKSHOP OR THE BRIEFING BUT CAN MAKE IT TO THE WORKSHOP VENUE FOR 5.30PM THERE WILL ALSO BE A SHORT RUN-THROUGH OF THE PLAN FOR SUNDAY'S EVENT THEN.

For more info:

voices@voicesuk.org or 0845 458 2564.

Voices UK
e-mail: voices@voicesuk.org
Homepage: http://www.voicesuk.org

Additions

Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

PLEASE JOIN THEM

29.03.2006 16:38

>PLEASE JOIN THEM. Wear black if possible and come prepared for a long ceremony and possible arrest.

Possible arrest ? Okay, I'll stump up the bus fares and sit sucking on nicotine gum for a weekend in the cells but do we really have to wear black ? Blue brings out my eyes. Is it a mark of respect for the dead or simple camouflage ?

monochrome

the single most important post on IM for a long, long while

29.03.2006 23:49

Just my opinion, but this is the most important and widely supported, uncriticisable action reported here for a long time, widely supported in terms of respectable names and uncriticisable in term of aims.

And the establishment won't be expecting this one, it is still below their radar. This time, whatever the organisers say, we should be prepared to take the same level of risks any peace-protestor in Iraq faces. As a citizen of the MAF you won't find a better cause, so the few of us who do turn up, let's show some resolve this time. Let's show everyone even a few of us can have a big effect and let's not wait for someone else to take the first steps. If you haven't been arrested before opposing genocide, this seems like the ideal occasion, this could still redeem your conscience. Prepare and practice something worthwhile and do it, failing that just improvise or join in.

This event helps give my own little isolated resistance some meaning. I'm in, big time, and I will bring my family too, any of my friends who still have some soul.

Please repost the original post regularly - and please don't hide it as a repost, IM peeps. Think how the poll tax ended Thatcher reign. Our government has been stolen from us, our anti-war movement has been stolen from us - let us take them back now.

Outsider

We have got to make a stand against international terrorism.

01.04.2006 09:19

Firstly we cannot simply pull out of Iraq as we have got to make a stand against international terrorism and stay in Iraq until the job is finished. Secondly the number of casualties in the three year long Iraq war have been very light with something like only 2,300 allied soldiers killed. That is not that many for a major war which has lasted three years. The much higher figure of around 20,000 for the number of Iraqi insurgents killed shows that America and Britain are winning this war. If we are on course for victory with such ease why are you so against this war, which most people still support.

Moderate

Numbers

01.04.2006 22:24

Moderate, I'm sure if those numbers killed included members of your family you would be singing a different tune. In fact, If the war in Iraq is such a great thing why don't you sign up and get your butt out there.

Response to Moderate

02.04.2006 14:16

The '20,000' Iraqi insurgents killed is a very vague figure, and it does not take into account the enormous civilian casualty rate. Many reliable sources estimate that the number of Iraqi civilians killed is well over 100,000 now. Iraq ison the brink of a calamitous civil war - arguably it's already in one. How can you possibly say that we are on course for victory? What would victory even mean in the circumstances? We've destroyed a country, and it's going to take decades to rebuild. Even with Saddam gone, even if Zarqawi and other al-Qaeda leaders were dead, what would we have achieved? More terrorists will spring up to take their places, and they'll be filled with even more hatred and anger against the countries that have destoryed their homeland.

Nick

pictures + satire of 'peace' protestors

03.04.2006 11:23

schmoo has 'blogged' some pictures of the event including some of a policeman taking down a poster saying 'bollocks' . Frankly, this was an apt poster for the event as it was hardly a 'civil disobediance' event. There is far more civil disobediance in the average school playground. All that is required to hold a demo outside Parliament is the good manners to ask, but the organisers obviously wanted to sound 'revolutionary'. A sickening form of 'radical' machismo - especially as they had the nerve to use the deaths of thousands of people as an excuse. At least be honest! Under the so called 'draconian' law covering holding events outside Parliament the police are obliged to say 'yes' to any proposal unless they have a good public safety reason. Such childish events supported by spoiled brats who can not see freedom when it is starting them in the face, can only serve to undermine the legitimate struggle for freedom and democracy in iraq. This involves millions of people who have never enjoyed the freedom to protest. Justice requires that we support them, not call for their cowardly abandonment.

schmoo
Homepage: http://www.schmoontherun.blogspot.com

Re: Bollocks

03.04.2006 20:11

those pictures were of whitehall. and taken of a different protest. and quite possibly on another day. no one at the demo was arguing that we have less freedom than iraqis. however, while their freedom is curtailed by our occupying forces and insurgents, and ours is curtailed by an inability to tell parliamentarians that this is wrong, yours seems to be curtailed by an inability to correctly read and understand blogs. i think that makes your protest far less legitimate than ours - whatever you might think of it.

kierra
Homepage: http://handsup@handsupfor.org

Protest, demonstrate and working together

03.04.2006 23:46

Well done to all those who took part. I was unable to attend, yet I fully support actions like these. I have another suggestion, which is to map out the circimference of the 1km exclusion zone and to form a continious circle of people on that circumference, and either ask for permissions for the line to go around those areas that cannot be mapped out due to buildings and other obstructions being in the way to be extended into the 1km area, or to continue the line behind those obstructions to highlight the fact that the permission was not granted.

The circle could, once it is in place, either hold a silence or make a prayer or other expression to the effect that we do not agree with the policies that allow governments to wage war upon innocent civilians, and to state that we see the profits that various coprorations and individuals make by supplying weapons and infrastructure to wage war as an abomination and a crime. Blood money no less!

To those who criticise (see above) anyone who seeks to make a protest or in any other way to resist our governments war-like attitude, I would say this - Do you hold that the prison guards and clerks of Dachau, Belsen and other such atrocities were 'just following orders" and thus not culpable? Do you believe that the atomic bomb is a tool for the peaceful people of this Earth? Do you believe that the 'sacrifice' of the hundreds of thousands of dead, maimed and truamatised people in Iraq is justifiable?

If you do, then I for one, would have to say that you are the enemy of the people. You are no better than those who drop bombs on civilians. You are not better than those who torture others. And you are complicit in these horrendous crimes. Your mind is not your own and you have no real heart or compassion for people, just a lot of intellectual pre-thoughts that you have been fed, and upon which you rely.

corneilius
mail e-mail: infocorneilius@yahoo.ie
Homepage: http://www.corneilius,net

Kollektives

London Topics

Major Coverage

Other IMCs