11 November 2010 — STOP THE WAR COALITION
IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
1) CUT WAR NOT PUBLIC SERVICES
2) WE WILL DEFY THE BAN ON OUR DEMONSTRATION
3) AS IF WE DON’T KNOW THEY LIE TO US
4) SOLDIER JOE GLENTON HANDS HIS MEDALS TO CAMERON
5) FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE AND TWITTER
1) CUT WAR NOT PUBLIC SERVICES
NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION
* AFGHANISTAN: TIME TO GO SATURDAY 20 NOVEMBER
* ASSEMBLE 12 NOON SPEAKERS’ CORNER
* HYDE PARK
* LONDON MARCH TO TRAFALGAR SQUARE Called by Stop the War Coalition, CND and British Muslim Initiative.
A large banner on this week’s huge protest against education cuts said it all: Spend on Education and Jobs – Not on War.
It’s a message that is clearly getting through. With little over a week before the national AFGHANISTAN: TIME TO GO demonstration in London on Saturday 20 November, the Stop the War national office is being inundated with requests for leaflets and posters, details of transport being organised around the country to bring protestors to London, and people volunteering to help.
We are asking all our supporters and local groups to re-double efforts in the next week to help maximise the turnout on 20 November.
We now have the added focus of defending our right to protest, as we will be defying an attempted ban on us using Speakers’ Corner as our assembly point (See below).
TRANSPORT FROM OUTSIDE LONDON Stop the War has been notified of around 30 towns across the country where transport has been organised to bring protestors to London. We will update this list as we get details of more locations here: bit.ly/cDXKmN.
VOLUNTEER If you would like to volunteer to help in our office, where you live or on the day of the demonstration, email: office@stopwar.org.uk or call 020 7801 2768
FOR DEMONSTRATION UPDATES GO TO: bit.ly/dpJQ3H
2) WE WILL DEFY THE BAN ON OUR DEMONSTRATION
Stop the War is yet again having to defend our right to protest, this time at the AFGHANISTAN: TIME TO GO demonstration.
The Hyde Park authorities are saying we cannot assemble at Speakers’ Corner on 20 November because we might cause an obstruction to people attending a Winter Wonderland event taking place half a mile away. SEE bit.ly/bdyMSr
We will defy this ban, just as we defied the attempted ban in February 2003, when they said the grass in Hyde Park would be damaged if we gathered there, and the ban in October 2007, when they tried to stop us marching from Trafalgar Square to Parliament.
The attempt to exclude protestors from Speakers’ Corner for purely commercial reasons is simply unacceptable. Join us on 20 November to protest against the unjustified and pointless war in Afghanistan, but also to defy the restriction on our democratic right to make that protest.
EMAIL THE HYDE PARK AUTHORITIES You can complain about this absurd ban by emailing chiefexecutive@royalparks.gov.uk
3) AS IF WE DON’T KNOW THEY LIE TO US
Our demonstration on 20 November is on the same day that NATO meets in Lisbon when the Afghan war will be top of the agenda.
Large scale demonstrations in Lisbon are planned when President Obama, David Cameron and other world leaders will tell us of the “progress” being made in the war, trying to counter the overwhelming majority of public opinion in the US, Britain, across the world, and not least in Afghanistan, that wants all foreign troops to be withdrawn from the country.
The reality was let out of the bag this week by Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain’s former special envoy to Afghanistan, who told parliament that the UK’s Afghan policy was “misleadingly optimistic”.
Cowper-Coles told MPs how a British army officer who told his superiors that the strategy in Afghanistan wasn’t working was ordered to change his report to make it more positive.
The relentless increase in US and NATO casualties, now at record levels, and the ever escalating civilian casualties, give the lie to all the talk of “progress”.
Cowper-Coles was telling us nothing we didn’t know: politicians and the military lie to us continually to try and justify mass murder.
4) SOLDIER JOE GLENTON HANDS HIS MEDALS TO CAMERON
Former soldier Joe Glenton, who served nine months imprisonment for refusing to return to Afghanistan, and who has been tirelessly speaking at public meetings across the country to help mobilise support for the demonstration on 20 November, will hand his military medals into David Cameron at Downing Street on Friday 19 November, the eve of our protest.
Joe will be joined by military families who have lost loved ones or have relatives serving in Afghanistan. They will deliver to David Cameron their letter calling for the British army to be withdrawn from Afghanistan now, which is the only way to support the troops who have been ordered to serve there so pointlessly.
Joe Glenton and the military families will be leading the march to Trafalgar Square on the 20 November demonstration.
5) YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
STOP THE WAR’S YOUTUBE CHANNEL Stop the War now has a YouTube channel where we are posting a series of short videos titled AFGHANISTAN: REASONS TO DEMONSTRATE. We will be adding more in the coming week. Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: bit.ly/d4nmnx
FACEBOOK If you are on Facebook please use the daily postings on Stop the War’s Facebook to spread the anti-war message. Our Facebook address is :
www.facebook.com/stopthewarcoalition
This supercedes our previous Facebook, where we don’t post anymore, so please make sure you are subscribed to the new address.
TWITTER: Join the thousands who follow us on Twitter here: twitter.com/STWuk
Email office@stopwar.org.uk Tel: 020 7801 2768 Web: stopwar.org.uk Twitter: twitter.com/STWuk
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