Some recent events and Good Friday

As I write members of the LCW are involved in a Stations of the Cross vigil. The vigil is taking place at the Geography of Suffering: it is beginning at 10 Downing Street, London. Moving throughout Westminster Borough. Arms Dealers, Climate Office, MoD, Parliament, Mi5, Home Office etc.... A report will be forthcoming

Some significant recent events have taken place since the last website update:

• We had a Free Bradley Manning! End the War! Meeting & Gig at Giuseppe Conlon House. The event kicked off at 2pm with information stalls and refreshments, space and time to network with others and music from the Bow Creek Ramblers Old Time String Band. People were also invited to sign a card from the gathering or write an individual letter of solidarity and support to Bradley Manning. A shrine representing Bradley Manning�s cell was also set up in the front porch of the venue, which was previously a Roman Catholic church. Imagine a free Bradley Manning� Full report here.

• Earlier this month in Dublin, Ciaron O'Reilly from the LCW joined Frank Cordaro and Steve Jacobs from the worldwide Catholic Worker movmeent in a series of events. Their aim was to encourage the Irish people to demand of President Obama to stop the torture of Bradley Manning and end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Full report here.

• The LCW had a Faith and Resistance retreat on Palm Sunday week-end which was well-attended and enjoyed by all.

Report on vigil for Brad Manning

A demonstration was held outside the US Embassy in London yesterday in solidarity with alleged Wikileaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning as part of a day of action around the world, including in the US and other parts of Europe and the UK. Around 80 people attended.

Bradley Manning is a dual US-UK national. His mother is Welsh and he attended secondary school in Pembrokeshire. The British government is therefore obliged to make representations for him. Plaid Cymru has shown its support for Manning and Labour MP Ann Clywd has compared his detention to that of Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Young people from Pembrokeshire joined the demonstration and asked why he was facing such abuse when no evidence had been presented to back up the charges. One young woman stated that when it becomes 'illegal to [act to] stop the killing of innocent people in Iraq, we need to question the laws we have'.

The demonstration was also addressed by Bruce Kent (vice-president, CND) and former SAS soldier Ben Griffin. Griffin, who had refused to return to the illegal war in Iraq, said that while people had been optimistic when Obama became president, we are now seeing a more secret war - Guantanamo Bay is still open, extraordinary rendition is still happening, extrajudicial killings and drone attacks in Pakistan are increasing. He stated that the treatment of Bradley Manning was a direct result of the normalisation of the behaviour of the US around the world, such as in Afghanistan and the Middle East, over the past ten years. He praised Manning as a 'brave young man'.

Human rights activist Peter Tatchell said that the issue was essentially that we have a right to know what the government is doing in our name. He also demanded that the government must act for Manning who is 'not a law breaker but a law enforcer', citing the law breakers as being the governments who have acted illegally 'in our name'.

The main part of the demonstration ended with a reading of a recent letter by Manning describing his treatment and a minute's silence. Full report and pics on indymedia.

Join us this Sunday to demand they stop torturing Bradley Manning

This Sunday March 20th from 2pm at the U.S. Embassy, London... Join Bruce Kent, Peter Tatchell, Ben Griffin & the LCW to demand they Stop Torturing Bradley Manning!

Why? To demand the end of the torture of Bradley Manning in Quantico U.S. Marine Base, Virginia USA. Although 23 year old Bradley Manning is a U.S. Army intelligence officer he is being held without explanation in the largest U.S. Marine Base in the world! Bradley is being held, in effect, in isolation and sensory deprivation, his conditions are torturous. Techniques finetuned at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have been unleashed on what U.S. authorities see as a nonviolent dissident within the U.S. war machine.

U.S. anti-war and human rights activists, lawyers, military veterans and the former commander of Quantico are heading down to Quantico this Sunday March 20 to demand justice for Bradley Manning. Others of us around the world will go on Sunday March 20 to U.S. embassies and sites of siginifiance in the U.S. wars on Iraq and Afghanistan and do like wise. Consider joining us or initiating your own activity for Bradley Manning on Sunday March 20.