The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament will join other anti-war campaigners at Downing Street this Thursday to mark the fifth anniversary of the war against Iraq. A protest vigil will be held opposite Downing Street from 11:30 to 12:30, with a delegation delivering a letter to Gordon Brown at noon calling for all troops to be brought home from Iraq and for an enquiry to be launched to discover how the country was taken to war over a fraud.
Local anti-war groups across the country are being asked to join with campaigners in Whitehall by holding a minutes silence at 12 noon to remember all those who have died as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Estimates from polling Iraqi civilians suggest a death toll of as much as a million in addition to the 4,298 deaths amongst the occupying forces.
Together with leading international law experts brought together by the group Peacerights, CND submitted a report to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2003 recommending that the UK government should be investigated for war crimes in Iraq . The report was received by the ICC but it refused to proceed with a case claiming that they had only been an “estimated 4 to 12 victims of willful killing” by US/UK forces at the time. In light of subsequent grave abuses known to have been committed by the multinational forces CND reiterates the call for those who led the country into a fraudulent war to face trial at the ICC, the body set-up specifically to deal with such breaches of international law.
Kate Hudson, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said, “The illegality of the war on Iraq, and the crimes committed there, cannot be swept under the carpet. Five years does not erase the guilt of those responsible for breaking international law and bringing about the deaths of countless thousands of innocent civilians. This will be a running sore, not only in British politics, but in international relations, until the troops are brought home, and those guilty are put on trial.”
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Notes to Editors:
For further information and interviews please contact Ben Soffa, CND’s Press Officer, on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 35,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere.