[JNV Press Release] Anti-war protester Maya Evans imprisoned for 13 days

[Justice Not Vengeance]

For Immediate Release


MAYA EVANS JAILED FOR AFGHAN WAR PROTEST


Contact: Justice Not Vengeance  07783 226 987


29 February, Hastings Magistrates Court: A peace activist who won a
“partial victory” in the High Court regarding British complicity in
torture in Afghanistan was jailed this morning for her part in an
anti-war protest.


Maya Anne Evans (32) from St Leonards was jailed for 13 days for
non-payment of over £300 in fines and costs, stemming from a court
case in November 2009.

Ms Evans was arrested in May 2009 for taking part in a nonviolent
“Die-in for NATO’s Victims in Afghanistan” outside Britain’s military
nerve centre at Northwood, and later convicted of “obstructing the
highway”. The demonstration – held to mark the second anniversary of a
NATO bombing attack that killed 47 Afghan civilians – was held to
demand an end to the bombing of Afghanistan and the withdrawal of
British troops from the country [1]. NATO bombing has continued since
then. Indeed, NATO recently confirmed the death of eight civilians in
an airstrike earlier this month [2].

Refusing to pay the fine on grounds of conscience, Ms Evans explained
that she had just returned from a trip to Afghanistan where victims of
the decade-long war had pleaded with her to return to the UK and
highlight their plight. "I don't feel what I did on 27 May 2009 was a
crime", she told the Court. "We were trying to highlight the war
crimes that had been committed."

Ms Evans recently returned from a month-long visit to Afghanistan
where she worked with Afghan peace activists, and met with refugees,
human rights workers and the relative of a civilian killed in an
unmanned “drone” strike [3].

In 2005, she was convicted for reading the names of the Iraq war dead
opposite the Cenotaph without police permission [4], and in 2010 she
won “a partial victory” in the High Court, regarding British
complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees [5].

Ms Evans said: “In Afghanistan I met a young man whose sister had been
left widowed, with an infant son, by a NATO airstrike that killed five
civilians. Meeting the victims of US and British policies has only
strengthened my conviction that we need to terminate Britain’s role in
this senseless and bloody war.”

She added: “Afghan peace campaigners urged me to do all I can to stop
British involvement in their country. It is all of our responsibility
to campaign against the death of innocent Afghan civilians, to
pressurise our government which currently has blood in its hands.”

For more info contact: Justice Not Vengeance 07783 226 987

www.j-n-v.org


NOTES

[1]
http://www.demotix.com/news/76194/wedding-die-protest-london-afghanistan-war-base

[2] “NATO Confirms Recent Airstrike Killed 8 Afghan Civilians”, Voice of
America, 15 February 2012, http://tinyurl.com/natoairstrike

[3] See http://fromhastingstokabul.wordpress.com

[4] “MPs condemn arrest of woman who spoke out”, Daily Mail, 8 December
2005 (http://tinyurl.com/zoep7)

[5] ”Partial victory’ in challenge to UK Taliban transfers’, BBC, 25
June 2010; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10412708