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1) Andrea Needham partial victory in court 2) Voices US partial victory in court Dear All, 1) Andrea Needham partial victory in court Yesterday, Monday 12 July, Andrea Needham of voices in the wilderness uk appeared in Horseferry Road magistrates court in London for the non-payment of a £1300 compensation order. On 17 December 1998 Andrea threw red paint on the Foreign Office and wrote 'Stop the Killing' on the wall (Gabriel Carlyle, co-coordinator of voices uk did the same, writing 'Lift the Sanctions'). On 15 March 1999 she was sentenced to 28 days in prison, and served 12 days in Holloway. At Horseferry Road, Andrea was facing a maximum penalty of 45 days in prison for nonpayment (meted out to Gabriel Carlyle on 10 May 1999). The magistrate was initially hostile, but she relented after a passionate speech by Andrea on the horrors she had seen in Iraqi hospitals. The magistrate decided to impose only a ONE day sentence. Andrea's appearance in court counted as one day, and so she served only TEN MINUTES for her £1300 compensation order, compared to Gabriel's 23 DAYS. --------------------------------- 2) Voices US in court for criminal trespass Six members of the Commence with Compassion fast and vigil began day 8 of the fast by going to Northwestern University President Henry Bienen's office on Tuesday morning, June 15. The Voices in the Wilderness members referred to previous correspondence sent to the President's office expressing their concern over awarding an honorary doctorate of law to Ms. Albright, given her active support of a foreign policy that has violated international law and directly caused the deaths of over 200,000 Iraqi civilians. Voices US members said they wouldn't leave the office until University officials could explain, to their satisfaction, how they could justify selecting Ms. Albright for this honor. VitW members were told that they could remain in the office until 5:00 p.m., but after that they would have to leave. Shortly after this notice, Voices members began, once every ten minutes, to quietly circulate through the 15 or so desks and cubicles in the President's office, knocking on each door, and telling the employees that in the past ten minutes another Iraqi child had died because of economic sanctions against Iraq. The employees were mainly sympathetic to these brief overtures. However, Dr. Barr warned the VitW members not to continue "bothering" the workers. Within fifteen minutes, Northwestern University Police arrested the six VitW members and charged them with criminal trespass. A court date was set for July 9, 1999. Five of those arrested have traveled to Iraq in violation of the US/UN economic sanctions and have witnessed the tragic consequences of the most comprehensive state of siege ever imposed in modern history. Facing charges of criminal trespass were: Rev. G. Simon Harak, SJ of Baltimore, MD; David Ferguson of Blacksburg, VA; Steve Jacobs of Columbia, MO; Kathy Kelly of Chicago, IL; Ken Hannaford-Ricardi, of Worcester, MA; and Bert Sacks of Seattle, WA. On Friday 9 July, the six were sentenced to a mere 30 days probation. ENDS -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. Please do not sent emails with attached files to the list *** Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html ***