Following recent attacks in Chiapas, a Week of National and International Solidarity “If they touch the Zapatistas, they touch all of us” has been called, to be held from 16th to 23rd February, 2014, to “denounce the counterinsurgency war” and emphasise that “the Zapatista communities are not alone.”
The new aggressions were made against the iconic Zapatista community of 10 de Abril, by government supporters from the group CIOAC democratic who live in a nearby community, and who have…
Two weeks ago in a room in Kabul, Afghanistan, I joined several dozen people, working seamstresses, some college students, socially engaged teenagers and a few visiting internationals like myself, to discuss world hunger. Our emphasis was not exclusively on their own country’s worsening hunger problems. The Afghan Peace Volunteers (AVP), in whose home we were meeting, draw strength from looking beyond their own very real struggles.
With us was…
There is a long tradition of official war art where artists are commissioned to draw in war zones. My work reverses this tradition. Instead of drawing war zones to commission, I draw the arms trade uninvited. My drawings are made undercover in arms fairs, arms company dinners, and AGMs. I draw in A6 concertina sketchbooks - they are small enough to hide, but can be opened out to work on a larger scale.
War and repression are big business. Arms companies expanded into…
On Saturday 25 January, Zoe Lawlor and John Lannon of Shannonwatch visited Margaretta D'Arcy in Limerick Prison. She has been there now for 10 days, as a result of her conscientious refusal to sign an undertaking that she would stay away from the restricted areas of Shannon Airport. She has made it clear that she has no problem signing a peace bond - after all, peace is what she is campaigning for.…
Emily Johns, Peace News co-editor and Hastings-based activist, was arrested last spring and sentenced last week after protesting for government transparency.
Her trial is part of a larger issue. With the Combe Haven Defenders, she is fighting against the Bexhill Hastings Link Road and the Department of Transports’ refusal to release crucial economic information. “It is a local way to tackle…
On Wednesday, January 15th, 79-year old Margaretta D’Arcy, writer, member of Aosdana which honours outstanding contributors to the arts in Ireland, and widow of the late playwright John Arden, answered a knock on the door of her small Galway City terraced house. It was the Irish police. She was arrested and ferried by squad car to Limerick Prison to serve a three month sentence. Her crime: failure to sign a bond pledging to no longer trespass onto unauthorised areas of Shannon Airport.…
In his 2011 book To End All Wars – the only recent account of the first world war to foreground the anti-war movement – Adam Hochschild asks: "If we were allowed to magically roll back history to the start of the 20th century and undo one – and only one – event, is there any doubt…
7pm, Friday 17 January 2014, London: Award-winning author Adam Hochschild [2] will be speaking about his history of the First World War To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914 - 1918 – the only recent history of the conflict to foreground the anti-war movement – at a talk at Friends House in London on Friday 17 January [3].
This will be his only talk in the UK in 2014, the War's centenary year. He will be available for a limited number of media…
Kabul: The fire in the Chaman e Babrak camp began in Nadiai’s home shortly after noon. She had rushed her son, who had a severe chest infection, to the hospital. She did not know that a gas bottle, used for warmth, was leaking; when the gas connected with a wood burning stove, flames engulfed the mud hut in which they lived and extended to adjacent homes, swiftly rendering nine extended families homeless and destitute in the midst of already astounding poverty. By the time seven fire trucks…
From Sherif in Egypt
My dear enemy, I kill you with love…
As my mind was growing, by reading and opening my eyes, my enemy took different shapes. At first, I thought he was the guy who beat the teenager pride out of me in a train fight over a girl, but that went by, forgotten and forgiven, leaving no scars, but rather a smile.
Then there was my neighbour on the farm land who was moving the border between us towards my land about five centimetres every…
Apart from being Haitian Independence day whereby former slaves successfully removed the cruel grasp of colonial slavery 210 years ago in 1804, today is also supposed to see a much needed increase in the minimum wage in Haiti but has sparked controversy.
Protests have broken out in Haiti demanding a greater increase than has been proposed whilst a somewhat inevitable a race down to the bottom backlash from industry and the international community has argued against even the modest…
Having broken free of the shackles of French colonial slavery, 210 years ago today Haiti become an independent country and in doing so became the first, and only, country to be born out of a successful slave revolt.
Despite its huge historically significance, the scope of the human ideals upon which Haiti gained its independence from a brutal colonial ruler is often lost in the modern narrative about…
Have you daydreamed about being a member of an intergenerational social justice organisation like the Order of Phoenix? Do you want Dumbledore to be your mentor? Have dementors ever burned you out to the point where you doubted your ability to take on the Voldemorts of our world? Do you find yourself analysing Dumbledore’s Army for lessons on developing liberatory vision, culture, leadership, and organisation? Me too. Let’s develop our magic, build our liberation movement, and defeat the…
On the 16th of November, 2013, eight-year-old Hashim s/o Abdul Hamid and nine-year-old Zukoom s/o Abdul Majid were on the streets of Kabul polishing boots when a suicide bombing (in opposition to the U.S./Afghanistan Bilateral Security Agreement) killed them.
Johnny Barber, a peace activist from New York, and Ronya, an independent, freelance journalist from Germany, accompanied the…
For the Maldives, indefinite political chaos remains the only certainty should presidential polling scheduled for today - the fourth attempt over the last two months to vote a new head of state to office - not be allowed to proceed.
Today's poll is scheduled to take place just days before the expiration of a constitutional deadline requiring that a new president be appointed by November 11.
The Maldives' fledgling democracy, ushered in following the nation's first ever multi-…
