Fw: [stonehengepeace] Pagan persecution at Avebury

[george at dicenews.com]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rowan" <ladyrowan100 at yahoo.com>
To: <stonehengepeace at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2003 12:22 AM
Subject: [stonehengepeace] Pagan persecution at Avebury


> Have copied this from
> http://www.headheritage.co.uk/headtohead/index.php?forum=tma
>
> I don't know if Mik & Emma are looking in here, so if you have any
> help to offer could you post it to that link as well please?  Cheers.
>
>
> "hi this is real important.please can you get this to as many like
> minded mo fo's as poss......we are being served with notice of
> prosecution on wed..need as much help and input as poss. below is a
> basic outline of who we are and what were about. thanks for your
> time.
>
> Hello!!
> We are writing to you to ask if you would be willing to help us in
> our oncoming conflict with the National Trust and Avebury Parish
> council. Firstly though please allow us to introduce ourselves and
> explain our situation.
>
> Our names are Mik and Emma and we are representing a group of pagans
> who visit the Avebury stone circle in Wiltshire on a regular basis.
> Avebury is the temple of the ancient Briton's (built over 5000yrs
> ago). As the biggest stone circle in Britain it attracts thousands
> of different people from all sorts of backgrounds from all over the
> world.
>
> Many of these visits are for the purposes of attending the religious
> ceremonies that take place at various differing times throughout the
> day and night. The main eight pagan festivals and all of the full
> moons are observed at the stones, so consequently this does require
> us parking our vehicles (for most of us our homes) in the tourists
> car park. Pagans have been parking in this car park overnight for
> many years so that they can safely enjoy and observe their religious
> celebrations. This has never been allowed by the National trust or
> the parish council but due to the goodwill of all parties no action
> has ever been taken. This has recently changed, the trust has began
> to issues prosecution notices to any vehicle parked over night. We
> really feel that this is an infringement on our right to religious
> ceremonies and the right to park our homes safely (could this be be
> a case of indirect discrimination?)
>
> We seem to have become mediators between the car park and the trust,
> who are not being that unreasonable, it is the parish council above
> them that are causing the problems. There is a good rapport between
> ourselves and the trust, (we organise litter picking etc at summer
> solstice), they know we have the stones best interests at heart! At
> a recent meeting we managed to get the trust to see that by not
> prosecuting over the ceremonies, people would respect these dates
> and not park between the agreed dates. This is what has happened
> over the last few weeks, no regular users have parked overnight out
> of respect and by means of comprise.
>
> We discovered at our meeting on 3/11/03 that this agreement had been
> denied, consequently we have offered ourselves to be prosecuted. It
> is hoped that will lead to precedents being set so that we can all
> go on to celebrate at this special site.
>
> We would be very grateful for any advice, contacts, publicity and
> help that you could offer us.
> Looking forward to hearing from you
> Mik & Emma x
>
>
>
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