PN
Our main interest was whether there was a knowledge gap between the generations who lived through the last phase of significant military conflict in the north of Ireland (the 1970s and 1980s) and those who came afterwards.
The result was: yes and no.
The one respondent under 25 (an 18-year-old) had no knowledge of the conflict at all (but sufficient cynicism to get a respectable 14 points out of a possible maximum of 35).
Much to our surprise, the next lowest-scoring…
Peace News author Ian Sinclair (far left) wove his magic in Peterborough on 26 February, talking to a goodly crowd of 23 (at the first public meeting held by the peace group for two years) about his new book about the 15 February 2003 anti-war demo: The march that shook Blair. Afterwards, Ian was interviewed by Peterborough Community Radio. Peace News Press launched the book on 15 February in Friends House, London, hosted by Quaker Peace and Social Witness, with a panel…
‘On this evidence, the big march was shock and awe from the bottom up; it came within a hair’s breadth of derailing the warmongers and still shapes our politics today.’ Joe Glenton, Afghan war veteran and author of Soldier Box(Verso)
According to polling, over 1¼ million people took part in Britain’s biggest-ever political protest: the 15 February 2003 anti-war march in London against the invasion of Iraq. There is a widespread feeling — among both activists and the…
On 1 January, several thousand kilos of food was delivered to the Chamne Babrak refugee camp in Kabul. £1,150 for the aid came from the PN Kabul winter appeal; Maya Evans raised over £2,000 on her speaking tour last year.
Another two hundred families have joined the Chamne Barak camp, fleeing rocket attacks by the Pakistani army in Nangahar province on the border.
‘Your generosity has made a huge difference to some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in…
The December 2012 de Silva report on the assassination of Belfast human rights lawyer Pat Finucane in 1989 led prime minister David Cameron to concede that there had been ‘shocking levels of collusion’ by the security forces in the killing. Cameron said he was ‘deeply sorry’ to the Finucane family.
The brief flurry of attention in the British media made us at PN reflect on the general level of knowledge and ignorance of the conflict in British activist circles. So here is a poll…
There are credible reports of 81 Afghans ‘disappearing’ from police custody in Kandahar over the last year, according to a report by the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in January.
Over half of those interviewed by UNAMA had experienced torture or ill-treatment, including children as young as 14.
UNAMA also found an increase in the use of electric shocks and stress positions as methods of torture over the last year. Other methods also continue to be used…
On 11 January, a member of Maya Evans’ legal team revealed in the Guardian that they had been able to discover secret evidence that was not revealed to her, under the ‘closed material procedures’ used in her case in 2010, when she challenged the complicity of British officials in the torture of a prisoner held in Afghanistan.
The concealed evidence indicated that ‘UK officials facilitated the torture of a UK-held prisoner at the hands of a foreign state – potentially criminal…
British-supplied Tornado aircraft are being used by the Saudi air force to attack southern Yemen.
On 4 January, Yemeni tribal people protested in the town of Radaa, in south Yemen, against the latest attack in the air campaign being waged by US drones and Saudi jets.
Hundreds of mourners threatened to take the bodies of the three latest victims to the president’s house in the capital, Sana’a, but were blocked by the Yemeni military.
On 19 December, the Daily Telegraph reported that British Tornado fighter-bombers and armed Reaper drones could continue to fly after the official British ‘withdrawal’ from Afghanistan in 2014.
British military sources told the paper that it would be easy to overfly Afghanistan with aircraft and drones based in the Gulf states or elsewhere in the region.
In mid-January, a NATO rocket strike killed 14 villagers in Hasan Khel in Wardak province, Afghanistan, according to a report in the Sunday Times, quoting an Afghan army officer, second lieutenant Mohammad Jawed, who lost his father, two brothers and an unborn child in the attack.
Villagers believe they heard a rocket-like whooshing sound, indicating a drone strike.
This banner was designed and made by the women of Llandrindod, Wales in 1981. The banner, which is now in the Bradford Peace Museum, was made for the ‘Women for Life on Earth Peace March’ from Cardiff to Greenham Common which marked the start of the Greenham Common women’s peace camp. Photo: Bradford Peace Museum
On 1 February, Morocco was due to finally put on trial 23 Sahrawis arrested when Moroccan security forces destroyed the Gadaym Izik protest camp (the forerunner to the more celebrated Arab Spring uprisings) in November 2010.
The 23 Sahrawis have carried out four hunger strikes to bring attention to the brutal treatment they have received in prison, and to the fact that despite being civilians they are facing trial in a military court.
Western Sahara has been illegally…
The slow-motion train-wreck that is the Nepali peace process tumbled further out of control in January, with new levels of inter-party hostility and deepening cracks within the Maoist camp.
The two main opposition parties, the Nepali Congress and the United Marxist-Leninists (UML), have stopped trying to reach an agreement with the ruling Maoist party (UCPN-M).
On 26 January, Congress and UML supporters attempted to blockade the prime minister Baburam Bhattarai and…
Protests continue in Tamil Nadu, India, against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant (see PN 2550) which has still not yet gone online.
On 10 December, more than 100 fishing boats marked international Human Rights Day with a ‘sea siege’ of the plant.
On 21 January, there was another protest by the National Fishermen Forum. The NFF secretary, T Peter, said: ‘If the plant starts its operation, the lives of thousands of fishermen will come to a standstill…. Today, on the…
On 19 November dozens of protestors formed a human chain to stop heavy machinery moving around the path of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline through Texas. Four locked themselves to machinery and three suspended themselves from 50-foot pine trees with lifelines anchored to construction equipment.
Cherokee County sheriff’s deputies were reported to have used ‘pain compliance’ measures, including pepper spray, to remove the locked-on protestors, who were dragged away ‘very…
