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The Peace People, 224 Lisburn Road, Belfast BT9 6GE, Northern Ireland

Phone: 0044 (0) 28 9066 346   Email: info@peacepeople.com    www.peacepeople.com

Press release     26th August 2013

Mairead Maguire, Nobel peace laureate, today appealed to the Rt. Hon. William Hague, British Foreign Minister, and M. Laurent Fabius, French Foreign Minister, to stop calling for military action against Syria which, she said, will only lead the Middle East into even more violence and bloodshed for its people.

Maguire said:

Arming rebels and authorizing military action by USA/NATO forces will not solve the problem facing Syria, but indeed could lead to the death of thousands of Syrians, the breaking-up of Syria, and it falling under the control of violent fundamentalist jihadist forces. It will mean the further fleeing of Syrians into surrounding countries which will themselves  become destabilised. The entire Middle East will become unstable and violence will spiral out of control.

Contrary to some foreign governments current policies of arming the rebels and pushing for military intervention, the people of Syria are calling out for peace and reconciliation and a political solution to the crisis, which continues to be enflamed by outside forces with thousands of foreign fighters funded and supported by outside countries for their own political ends.

Having visited Syria in May, 2013, after leading a 16 person delegation I returned convinced that the civil community, with groups such as Mussalaha, who are working on the ground building peace and reconciliation, can solve their own problems if their plea for outsiders to remain out of the conflict is honoured by the international community.

During our visit we met with all sections of the community, most of whom are sick of violence and death and want peace and reconciliation and a political solution. We met with the Syrian Prime Minister and 7 other government ministers, and we were assured that the Government did not use sarin gas on its own people, and they invited the UN to send in inspectors to see what was happening.

Currently there is an International Commission of Inquiry on Chemical Weapons in Damascus staying at Four Seasons Hotel, which is less than ten minutes from the areas where the chemical weapons were allegedly used. The western media, particularly vocal being the British and French Foreign Ministers, are accusing President Assad of using chemical weapons on his own people but have no proof of this accusation, rather some things point to rebels as the ones who used such weapons.

The question must be asked,  what would it benefit Assad to use sarin gas in the vicinity of visiting international UN inspectors and in his own environment and neighbourhood where it would affect his soldiers, etc., personally, I do not believe the latest accusations against the Assad government using sarin gas,  and in order that the world can hear the truth, I would appeal to the International Commission of Inquiry to go into the areas in question immediately and report as quickly as possible.  In the meantime I appeal to the Foreign Ministers of Britain and France to encourage, as the Syrian people wish, dialogue and negotiation as a way forward.   We all remember the fear, panic and lies spun by the British and American governments, and others that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and it was not true.   Let us learn the lesson of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya where so many millions have been killed in invasions and war, and many continue to die in violence. Violence is not the answer, let’s end this ‘war on terror’ and give nonviolence and peace a chance.

 

Mairead Maguire

Nobel peace laureate

www.peacepeople.com

info@peacepeople.com

peace people, 224 Lisburn road, Belfast. Bt307NW.  N. Ireland

 

“In view of the fact that in any future world war, nuclear weapons will certainly be employed – and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind – we urge the governments of the world to realise, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them”

 

Click here to endorse the petition.

The Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim community in western Burma, are under attack, with untold numbers killed by vigilantes and security forces. Tens of thousands have now fled to neighboring Bangladesh, but the government there is blocking aid — if we act together now, we can pressure Bangladesh to reverse course and offer Ramadan relief to those in need.

International relief charities were coming to the aid of Rohingya refugees, but now the Bangladeshi government is shutting them down, saying the refugees aren’t Bangladesh’s responsibility. Without this aid, the refugees, many of them children, are at grave risk of disease and starvation. But the important Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) could push Bangladesh to reverse the aid ban and rescue the Rohingya.

Next week all 57 OIC member countries, including Bangladesh, are meeting in Saudi Arabia for an emergency summit to address the crisis. OIC Chief Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu will urge Bangladesh to show mercy and compassion towards Rohingya refugees and could offer financial backing, but he needs a strong show of public support to make Bangladesh heed his call. Sign the urgent petition now and share with everyone you know – it will be delivered directly to the OIC meetings next week when we reach 50,000 signers.

Click here to sign the petition.

Yesterday in Jerusalem, Mitt Romney made some statements that were not only wrong, but, frankly, racist and ignorant.

Romney declared that “cultural differences” were the reason the Palestinian economy is not doing as well as Israel’s, without even acknowledging the Occupation. On top of that, he managed to get his facts completely wrong, claiming the Israeli GDP is twice that of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, when in fact it is actually about ten times as high.

Please help us send a message to Mitt Romney that this kind of ignorance and racism is unacceptable.  JVP members in Boston will be delivering your signature personally to Romney Headquarters.  Let’s get enough signatures that he’ll know that his statements were not a reflection of our Jewish or American values.

Click here to sign the petition to tell Mitt Romney that his racism and ignorance in Jerusalem was unacceptable.

The biggest company in the world is days away from drilling for oil in the Arctic, a breeding ground for whales and polar bears. The US Environmental Protection Agency can stop them, but it’s up to us to demand they do and save the Arctic now.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson, can right now withdraw Shell’s Arctic permit because the company is unable to meet air pollution controls for their ships, violating the terms of the permit. Environmental activists are raising the alarm, but unless we make it a huge global scandal, Shell will use its muscle and the Arctic will be open for the oil business.

Lisa Jackson has stood up to the energy industry before, but Shell is a Goliath that won’t be easily knocked back. We are running out of time — let’s make this decision the line in the sand that protects this great wilderness from becoming an oil field.

Click here to sign the petition.

Big banks have been caught in a massive scam to rig global interest rates, ripping off millions of people on their mortgages, student loans and more! We’d go to jail for this, but Barclays bank has only been fined, and just a fraction of their profits! Outrage is mounting — this is our chance to finally turn the tide of the banks’ reign over our democracies.

The EU finance regulator, Michel Barnier is standing up to the powerful bank lobby and championing reform that would put bankers behind bars for fraud like this. If the EU goes first, accountability could quickly spread across the globe. But the banks are lobbying hard against it, and we need a massive surge of people power to drive these reforms through.

If we can get 1 million people to stand with Barnier in the next 3 days, it will give him momentum to face down the banking lobby and push governments to bring reform. Sign the petition, and our growing numbers will be represented by adding mock bankers to a jail right in front of the EU Parliament.

Click here to sign the petition.

Please click here to sign the petition.

Over a million people have called on world leaders to end fossil fuel subsidies at the Rio Earth Summit — a no-brainer policy that could take one trillion tax dollars from Big Oil and reinvest it in green energy. But they’ve failed to deliver — even with the backing of the EU, the US and most G20 countries! The talks end in hours. Now is our chance to save them and the planet’s future.

Brazil’s Dilma is hosting the summit and has the power to reopen discussions and demand a timeline for ending polluter payouts, but she is considering walking away with the weak language presented by a team of bureaucrats. We can stop her in her tracks.

Dilma has hours to emerge as a global climate hero. Sign this urgent petition now and forward to everyone — at 500,000 signers, Avaaz will deliver it straight to Dilma’s hands and run an urgent, hard-hitting ad in the Financial Times.

Sign the petition here.

Only recently, Badayl Alternatives sent out an urgent call to action about the life of a 25 year old Palestinian footballer Mahmoud Al-Sark. He has been on hunger strike for 84 days to protest his imprisonment without any reasonable charge.

If successful, this campaign can redefine how the world begins to address the question of Israel’s irregularities in applying international human rights law when it comes to administrative detention, imprisonment without trial, arbitrary detention.

The South Korean government and the Navy is constructing a naval base at Gangjeong village in The Jeju island, which was designated as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO and whose landscape is well-known as one of the most beautiful ones in the world. For the past several years, the grassroots people’s movement and the hundreds of civil society organizations have been fighting against such a destructive and anti-environmental effort. Against this, the National Association of Professors for Democracy in Korea (NAPD) is collecting solidarity signatures from citizens around the world.

Click here to read The Statement of Citizens in the Globe for Stopping the Naval Base Construction in Jeju Island and Keeping East-Asian Peace