‘US embassy shut down by anti sanctions protesters’
Non Violent Direct Action backed by Bishop to oppose economic sanctions on Iraq
Saturday 25th November, 1pm, Grosvenor Square (London) :
A crowd of 120 people blatantly risked arrest outside the US embassy on Saturday, where many protestors blocked the entrance to the United States embassy by sitting or lying on the road to oppose the economic sanctions on Iraq. There were three arrests. The entrances to the embassy were shut down for two hours.
Earlier this year 300 people participated in a similar protest outside the Foreign Office, blocking Whitehall for 30 minutes [1]. Photographs will be available.
The Bishop of Brentwood, Thomas McMahon, has given his support for the action. The Bishop said "I support non-violent direct action against the sanctions on Iraq. This policy has devastated Iraqi society and cost the lives of many people - particularly the lives of children."
According to UNICEF economic sanctions have contributed to the death of 500,000 Iraqi children since 1990 [2].
The sit-down is part of an International Week of Action starting on Universal Children’s Day (20th November). Sponsors for the Week include Benjamin Zephaniah, George Monbiot, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Harold Pinter and several MPs. Events will be taking place in Cambridge, Reading, Manchester, Milton Keynes, London, Italy, the Republic of Ireland, the United States and elsewhere.
The Week of Action takes place in the wake of a series of international flights that have begun to nibble at the edges of the sanctions [3].
NOTES
[1] ‘Protestors Block Road in London over Iraq Sanctions’, Agence France Presse, 7th August 2000
[2] UNICEF, "Iraq surveys show ‘humanitarian emergency’", 12th August 1999.
[3] See eg. ‘Syrian Plane to Iraq defies UN ban’, Associated Press, 18 October 2000.
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