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Press Release 10:00 Date: 7 February 2003 Contact: Jo Wilding 07979 211897 jo_wilding@yahoo.co.uk Peace Activist Leaves for Iraq on human rights mission. British peace activist Jo Wilding will leave for Iraq on Thursday 13th February to act as a human rights observer, accompanied by independent film maker Julia Guest. The aims of the trip are: 1) to meet with ordinary Iraqi people and report on their situations and to help them in any way possible with practical tasks like digging wells to survive the bombardment; 2) to gather evidence of likely and actual breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other humanitarian law relating to the protection of civilians; 3) to take humanitarian items, especially educational materials, vitamins and painkillers, in breach of the sanctions; 4) to set up a twinning programme between Bristol and Basra, linking schools, universities, hospitals, workplaces and so on in order to build understanding between the two communities which have been isolated from one another by the embargo. Julia Guest is an independent film maker and photographer who has worked with the peace and environmental movements for several years. She has visited Iraq on two previous occasions. Jo Wilding is a part time law student who appeared in court in December 2002 for breaking the sanctions against Iraq, and in January 2001 for throwing fruit at Tony Blair in a protest against sanctions. Jo will deliver a letter to Tony Blair at Downing Street at 11am warning him against breaching the Geneva Conventions and other humanitarian law. Such breaches cease to be "collateral effects" when they are inevitable and known about in advance. She says, "After the US puts in its own puppet in Iraq, people will be worse off even than they are under sanctions. Iraq's massive external debt and the many spurious compensation claims against it mean Structural Adjustment will be imposed on it, so public services will be privatised and the natural resources will be taken over by foreign multinationals. When sanctions are dropped, the food ration, the only social security Iraqi people have, will be gone. "The US wants Iraq held together with an "iron fist" and will never allow the Kurds genuine autonomy, nor the Iraqi people genuine democracy. It has nothing to do with freedom or justice and it's wrong. Talking about solidarity with the Iraqi people at a time like this maybe sounds a bit inadequate, but one day our kids will have to make peace out of the disaster we're making for them. That's why we're going to Iraq, to do whatever we can." Call Jo on 07979 211897 ENDS sign the pledge of resistance to the "war on terrorism" www.j-n-v.org _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk