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1 WAR Protest PROTESTS AGAINST WAR GROWING, DEMONSTRATORS CLAIM

By Alan Jones, PA News

Protests against military action in Iraq are growing and a huge demonstration will be held in London on Saturday despite attempts to suggest that the anti-war movement was losing support, it was claimed today.

The Stop The War Coalition claimed that police had been briefing that mainly hardliners would join Saturday’s march through central London.

Chairman Andrew Murray told a Westminster news conference today that it was “utterly improper and incorrect” of police to make such suggestions, which he maintained were aimed at discouraging people taking part in the event.

“We are organising meetings in many parts of the country which are bigger than those which took place before the war started,” said Mr Murray, adding that one meeting in Liverpool last night had drawn a crowd of more than 1,000 people.

The Coalition expects hundreds of thousands of people from across the UK to take part in Saturday’s march, which will be held to commemorate the people who had died during the conflict.

Demonstrators will hold a minute silence as a mark of respect to the Iraqi civilians and members of the military forces who have been killed or injured in the fighting.

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2 WAR Protest Carol Naughton, chairwoman of CND, which is helping to organise Saturday’s rally, told the news conference she was being asked why she was still protesting against the war, now that it seemed the military phase was nearing its end.

She went on: “I cannot put my conscience to one side just because thousands of people have already been killed.

“The conduct of this war has been inhumane and we have to keep opposing what has happened to make sure that the people carrying this out are held accountable.”

Ms Naughton said that on May 25 a group of international lawyers would be meeting in London to consider whether members of the British government, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon had committed war crimes.

Ms Naughton said she was convinced war crimes had been committed and she believed the case should be heard in the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Anas Altikriti of the Muslim Association of Britain said the vast majority of Muslims in this country remained opposed to the war.

He said the British public was being fed “lies and deception” about the conduct of the war while the true nature of the humanitarian disaster had not been disclosed.

“There is an attempt to portray this as a clean campaign with few civilian casualties and minimum disruption to infrastructure but in fact Iraq is in a state of total chaos.”

Demonstrations were being held in town centres across the country later today to coincide with the Budget to protest at the amount of money being spent on the war.

Speakers at Saturday’s rally in London will include former MP Tony Benn, and Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn, George Galloway and Tam Dalyell.

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