Grandma to tell of non-violent campaign in Iraq on UK tour
-9/11/04
A 62-year-old Americ
Grandma to tell of non-violent campaign in Iraq on UK tour
-9/11/04
A 62-year-old American grandmother, who has spent 13 of the last 24 months in Iraq with Ekklesia’s partner organisation Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), documenting the cases of Iraqis detained by the occupying forces and supporting non-violent efforts by Iraqis for justice and peace, is to tour the UK next week.
Over the last few years Peggy Gish has braved bombs and bullets in the West Bank and Iraq, “getting in the way” in the service of peace and human rights.
She is the author of Iraq: A journey of hope and peace which chronicles her experiences sleeping in a tent during bomb attacks, being robbed and deported, fighting for justice for Iraqi prisoners and creating relationships with Iraqi citizens. Her UK speaking tour includes events in Colchester, Southend, Haverhill, Bristol, Dorset, Slough, London, Bradford, Leeds, Manchester, Northampton and Reading.
Despite the so-called “handover” of sovereignty on 28 June 2004, the US continues to detain roughly 5000 Iraqis and is creating a long-term detention facility at Camp Bucca, near the Kuwaiti border. Meanwhile, according to Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh – who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib torture photos in May – the ‘Special Access Programme’ which ‘encouraged [the] physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners’ was ‘reconstituted’ mid-June with ‘[t]he same rules of engagement’
CPT initiated a long-term a presence in Iraq in October 2002 and have been focussing on the issue of Iraqi detainees since August 2003. They are one of the few groups of internationals to still have a presence in Iraq.
They produced a dossier of 72 cases of prisoner abuse in Iraq in January this year.
Peggy Gish said: “In Iraq this summer it was obvious to our team that not only had the violence increased, but that the U.S. had maintained its control over Iraqi society and Iraq’s government.
“It was also disturbing that, despite the Abu Ghraib revelations, there was still brutality and excessive violence being used against Iraqis in the process of arrest, interrogation and imprisonment. As Christians we know of another way of dealing with evil, a more powerful way that leads to life and real security, not the cycle of revenge and violence that war inevitably brings in its wake. The world of terror desperately needs to see a people living out the vision of Jesus, of nonviolent suffering love.”
Peggy Gish will tour the UK from 13 – 21 November.
Grandma to tell of non-violent campaign in Iraq on UK tour
-9/11/04
A 62-year-old American grandmother, who has spent 13 of the last 24 months in Iraq with Ekklesia’s partner organisation Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), documenting the cases of Iraqis detained by the occupying forces and supporting non-violent efforts by Iraqis for justice and peace, is to tour the UK next week.
Over the last few years Peggy Gish has braved bombs and bullets in the West Bank and Iraq, “getting in the way” in the service of peace and human rights.
She is the author of Iraq: A journey of hope and peace which chronicles her experiences sleeping in a tent during bomb attacks, being robbed and deported, fighting for justice for Iraqi prisoners and creating relationships with Iraqi citizens. Her UK speaking tour includes events in Colchester, Southend, Haverhill, Bristol, Dorset, Slough, London, Bradford, Leeds, Manchester, Northampton and Reading.
Despite the so-called “handover” of sovereignty on 28 June 2004, the US continues to detain roughly 5000 Iraqis and is creating a long-term detention facility at Camp Bucca, near the Kuwaiti border. Meanwhile, according to Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh – who broke the story of the Abu Ghraib torture photos in May – the ‘Special Access Programme’ which ‘encouraged [the] physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners’ was ‘reconstituted’ mid-June with ‘[t]he same rules of engagement’
CPT initiated a long-term a presence in Iraq in October 2002 and have been focussing on the issue of Iraqi detainees since August 2003. They are one of the few groups of internationals to still have a presence in Iraq.
They produced a dossier of 72 cases of prisoner abuse in Iraq in January this year.
Peggy Gish said: “In Iraq this summer it was obvious to our team that not only had the violence increased, but that the U.S. had maintained its control over Iraqi society and Iraq’s government.
“It was also disturbing that, despite the Abu Ghraib revelations, there was still brutality and excessive violence being used against Iraqis in the process of arrest, interrogation and imprisonment. As Christians we know of another way of dealing with evil, a more powerful way that leads to life and real security, not the cycle of revenge and violence that war inevitably brings in its wake. The world of terror desperately needs to see a people living out the vision of Jesus, of nonviolent suffering love.”
Peggy Gish will tour the UK from 13 – 21 November.