Stop Bush Now !

CALL TO ALL ANTI-MILITARISTS, PACIFISTS, CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS, PLOUGSHARES TYPES, NONVIOLENCE PRACTITIONERS, CONCERNED COMMUNITIES, PUNKS, QUAKERS, ANARCHOS, FEMINISTS, ECO(NONVIOLENT!)WARRIORS, RADICAL QUEERS, ANTI-CAPS ETC ETC...
On 19 March there will be an opportunity to march under the simple banner -against *all* war-

If this is your perspective (rather then the -against the war on Iraq in isolation because it represents US imperialism- kind of perspective) - join us!

Promises to be a very diverse bloc and will also contain a women-only sub-bloc of feminist antimilitarists.

Other distinct sub-blocs welcome to do their own thing as part of it :) Just organise yourselves!

There will be a stack of very simple -against all war- type placards available for anyone bereft of their own propaganda. But pls bring your own messages, banners, music, drums, etc - whatever you feel like really - its a DIY thing!

Meet 1pm on the Marble Arch island. Look out for a 20+ foot -against all war- banner (should be pretty obvious!)

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There is no organisation, no party, etc. This call has been made by individual activists and groups from the old-skool peace and antimilitarist scene who want to create a clearly-defined space for showing resistance to ALL war. Peace News agreed to support the call and posted info on their site. Info also posted on IMC UK and other (obvious) locations.

Friday evening Film: Aberystwyth Arts Centre - "Uncovered" - the War on Iraq - by award-winning filmmaker & documentary maker Roger Greenwald - probably 7.30 - see website at bottom here.
Saturday Morning Peace March: 10.30am Assemble Park Avenue - opposite the police station. Afternoon indoors at Old College.

ll.OOam [prompt] start of march through town
12.30am 'Peace Tax 7' speakers at Aberystwyth Castle
1.00pm Lunch & signing of "Give peace a hand"

Saturday Afternoon stalls, speakers & workshops:

2.00pm Old College: panel of speakers on legal issues in connection with war & human rights including:
- Phil Shiner (voted Humanitarian Lawyer of 2004,)
- Clive Stafford-Smith (lawyer for two of the Guantanamo Britons,)
- Michael Mansfield Q.C.,
- Ken Booth (Head of Dept. for International Politics at Aberystwyth University,)
- Milan Rai (author & activist,)
- Mrs Ahmad (whose husband is facing extradition with­out the US providing any prime evidence,)
- chaired by Jill Evans MEP CUD Cymru Chair.

3.30pm workshops with members of the panel on aspects of war, justice & responsibility.
5.00pm Be-assemble for report back on activities & resolutions.

Aberystwyth Peace & Justice Network is very keen to have other groups involved in activities & preparations. Please help to make the march as spectacular as possible with banners, colours, dressing up & music. Aberystwyth Samba band is joining us again!

For more details & offers of help please contact: email: kelvin.mason at tiscali.co.uk or lotte.reimer at tiscall.co.uk

phone: (01970) 610 185 or CND Cymru (01550) 750 260.

See Aberystwyth Peace & Justice Network website:  http://www.aberystwythpeaceandjusticenetwork.co.uk/

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Most read story in All Topics:
SADDAM’S BODYGUARD REVEALS SECRET ARSENAL

Islamic Republic of Iran is an Islamic theocracy. The real power to vet the candidates before and after they emerge from “Islamic Ballot Boxes” and the final power to veto any legislation deemed un-Islamic is with an unelected body called the Guardian Council.

The Guardian Council is made up of senile aged clerics determined to run Iran as a medieval religious dictatorship.

The people of Iran have had their revolution of 1979 hijacked by these clerics of the dark ages. In the last 25 years, Iranian people have struggled for a secular democracy and a better life without much help from the international community.

• When the women in Iran were forced to wear the veil again, no women’s organisations in the West marched in support of the Iranian women who wanted to choose what to wear.

• When kids as young as 12 and pregnant women were executed by the Islamic Republic for opposing the Islamic regime, no one marched to condemn the Islamic Republic’s hideous acts.

• When virgin teenage dissident girls were raped before execution so as not to enter the “Islamic heaven” after their deaths, no one in the West marched to express their condemnation.

• When women in Iran are put into a sack and buried up to their waist and stoned to a cruel agonising slow death, no so-called progressive organisations in the West have marched to condemn this barbaric act.

• When the Iranian political prisoners, mostly Left-wing activists, were massacred in their thousands in 1988, no one, including the Left in the West marched to stop the massacre.

• When thousands of Iranian students were rounded up in 1999 and given long-term sentences during the student uprisings that took place across 19 Iranian cities, the so-called progressive organisations and students in the West, again were silent.

Yes, we are against a military invasion of our country. But in order to guarantee peace and security for the people of Iran and the Middle East, first we must get rid of the theocratic, medieval religious dictatorship in Iran that supports, harbours and sponsors international terrorism. Only a free and democratic Iran will be the best guarantee against any military intervention.

Give us a hand, lets oppose the Islamic Republic of Iran today.

Alliance of Iranian Students
www.daneshjooyan.org/english

Ahmed is absolutely right. There is not enough progressive solidarity in the West with the Iranian opposition, at a time when secularist forces are joining together to fight theocratic rule. The British Left in particular dismisses anti-clericalism in Iran as some stooge for American imperialism.

In the Khuzestan province, there are 4.5 million Ahwazi Arabs who are living in conditions at least as bad as the Palestinians. Their cultural identity is under threat from Persianisation and the Islamic Republic, 80% live in absolute poverty, 60% are illiterate, Ahwazi homes are regularly bull-dozed and schooling in Arabic is banned. Meanwhile, oil companies are bleeding Ahwazi tribal lands for profit. Ahwazi lands contain 90% of Iran's oil reserves or 8% of the world's total.

So, where is the solidarity? Where are the marches in support of a progressive, democratic, pluralist, multi-ethnic and secularist Iran? If you can march in your thousands for Iraq, then you must march for Iran also.