PRESS RELEASE 21 December 2004
Voices in the Wilderness UK [A]
Contact 0845 458 2564 or 07952 354 722

Tents erected in Parliament Square to demand justice for Fallujah
refugees Blair feasts while refugees freeze

Parliament Square, 7pm Wednesday 22 December - 7am Thursday 23 December: Peace activists will erect tents and stage a night-long protest in Parliament Square on Wednesday to demand justice for the more than 200,000 refugees who fled the November US assault on Fallujah, many of whom are currently struggling to find food, shelter and medical provision in near-freezing temperatures. The campers will display a banner reading 'Justice for Fallujah's refugees', as well as placards demanding housing for the refugees and protesting US war crimes in the city. In Iraq 'tent cities [of refugees] have sprung up at the Baghdad International Fair, Baghdad University and other sites' and one recent media report depicted a family of nine - including three disabled children - living in a 10ft x 10ft canvas tent with a kerosene heater as their only source of warmth [B].

'US commanders and Iraqi leaders have declared their intention to make Fallujah a "model city" meaning that, if and when they do return, Fallujah's refugees will face an Orwellian existence. The first of Fallujah's refugees are scheduled to return to the city on Thursday [C]. When they do they will 'have their fingerprints taken, along with DNA samples and retina scans [and] be issued with badges [which] it will be an offence not to wear … at all times' [D]. The US has also been floating the idea of compelling all males in Fallujah to join "work battalions" to clear rubble in the devastated city.

Wednesday's protest is backed by the former UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq, Denis Halliday, who resigned his post in 1998 to protest against the suffering inflicted on ordinary Iraqis by economic sanctions, and by Milan Rai, bestselling author of the book War Plan Iraq. Both will be available for media interviews all day Wednesday as well as Thursday morning.

A spokesperson for the campers said: "As Tony Blair tucks into his Christmas dinner this year, tens of thousands of Iraqis - refugees from a brutal military assault that took place with the assistance of UK forces - will be huddling in tents in freezing temperatures, not knowing whether their homes have been destroyed or their friends and neighbours killed. We are here today to protest US plans to turn what's left of Fallujah into a police state and to demand instead housing and compensation for the city's homeless and bereaved and war crimes prosecutions for those responsible for their plight: Mr Bush and Mr Blair."

For more information or to arrange an interview with either
Denis Halliday or Milan Rai contact 0845 458 2564 or 07952 354 722

NOTES
[A] Voices in the Wilderness UK has been campaigning on Iraq for the last six years.
[B] www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-displaced8dec08,
1,6057241.story?coll=la-headlines-world
[C] See AFP report at http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1512&ncid=1512&e=1&u=/afp
/20041220/wl_afp/iraqfallujah_041220160055
[D] Independent, 11 December