On Friday 21 December 2012, starting at 4.45pm, St John’s Church in Edinburgh (at the corner of Princes Street and Lothian Road, EH2 4BJ) hosts an Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre event with Ploughshares activist Fr Bill Bichsel and Leonna O’Neill of Faslane Peace Camp. This will be followed by a Christmas Party.
On Friday 21 December 2012, starting at 4.45pm, St John’s Church in Edinburgh (at the corner of Princes Street and Lothian Road, EH2 4BJ) hosts an Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre event with Ploughshares activist Fr Bill Bichsel and Leonna O’Neill of Faslane Peace Camp. This will be followed by a Christmas Party.
Eighty-three-year-old Jesuit priest Bill ‘Bix’ Bichsel was imprisoned for six months in 2011/12 for embodying the vision of the Prophet Isaiah to “beat swords into ploughshares” when, along with four other Catholic activists, he sought to disarm US Trident nuclear weapons with ordinary household hammers.
Founder of the Tacoma Catholic Worker House, Bix has devoted his life to nonviolent campaigning for peace and nuclear disarmament and to serving the poor. His remarkable spirit was strengthened when he was held in solitary confinement in cold conditions even though his medical condition makes him suffer greatly from the cold.
Bix will be travelling to Norway to accept an alternative Peace Prize. Come hear about the witness of this remarkable, joyful peacemaker and the ongoing nonviolent campaigns of the Ground Zero and Pacific Life Communities for nuclear disarmament in the United States.
Leonna O’Neil has been living at Faslane Peace Camp for two years. She has organised numerous nonviolent direct actions resisting Trident here in Scotland. Last June she entered Coulport nuclear weapons depot, reaching the high security explosive handling jetty. She will speak about the UK’s plans to upgrade Trident and plans for a Big Blockade of Faslane in late April 2013.
* Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre: http://peaceandjustice.org.uk/
* Further information: [email protected]
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(c) Brian Larkin is coordinator of Edinburgh Peace and Justice Centre and of its volunteers. is a US citizen who has been living in Scotland for some years, having first come to study theology at St Andrews University. An active member of Trident Ploughshares he has been arrested at Faslane and other nuclear weapons bases on numerous occasions.