Reta Kaur – Guilty of trespass and resist arrest. Sentenced to 1 year good behaviour bond.

Reta Kaur protesting in Melbourne against the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, all wars, terrorism, and our civilised inhumanity

 

RETA KAUR: GUILTY - ONE YEAR GOOD BEHAVIOUR BOND

 

WAR CRIMINALS: FREE - BONDED TO A LIFETIME OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

 

Sow the seeds of dissent against war, injustice, and all forms of terrorism.

 

Dear people for peace,

 

I was found guilty of trespass and resist arrest on Monday, 5 December 05.  I was sentenced on Friday 9 December 05 to a one year good behaviour bond by Magistrate Fitzgerald in the Magistrates Court in Melbourne.  His Honour said in his judgement that he "believed the police”, not a 60-year-old woman peace activist or her three women witnesses.

 

The facts of the case: 7 women went to The Shrine War Memorial in Melbourne on Remembrance Day 11/11/ 03 for a silent, peaceful vigil for "No more wars, and peace in the 21st-century.”  The police set us up, wouldn't allow us to be there, told us to move off the grounds.  I was arrested.  Another woman was assaulted by a digger, and the police refused to charge him. The other women were aged: 78, 69, 67, 58, 48, 40+.  Three of the women were my witnesses, and the magistrate refused to believe them; and he twisted their evidence and used it against me. 

 

Please don't think the sentence is mild and it is "a good outcome".  IT IS NOT.  It is the criminalistion of peaceful dissent against war and we must not accept it. The verdict of GUILTY hurts me. It hurts me that I was not believed in a court of law.  It hurts me that the war machine continues to recruit young people into their war culture through the false packaging of Remembrance Day and ANZAC Day, and that primary school children are invited to attend these war ceremonies.  The promise of Lest We Forget was a promise of no more wars.  World War 1 was promised to be "A War To End All Wars."  We betray the dead with our addiction to war.  And Australia has a particular war tradition of defending itself from thousands of kilometers away, from other people's countries, as in Gallipoli, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, etc.

 

We can trespass in Afghanistan and Iraq, kill thousands of people, destroy those countries, plunder their wealth, rape their women, kill their children.  But when women or Scott Parkin protest at the carnage of war, our peace actions are criminalised.   We now have anti-terror legislation in Australia, Britain, USA, and in some European countries.  It is also time for anti-war legislation, particularly after the 2 world wars, and many others in the 20th-century.  The people of the world demand that the 21-century be dedicated to peace & justice.  Demand anti-war legislation.  Put this slogan on every email you send out.  Let us make this a slogan for peace in the 21st-century. 

 

The curse of war must be addressed by us in our lifetime.  We cannot pass this curse on to our children, as was done to us.  The power is with us.  Please don't give it away.  I am constantly asked how war can be brought to an end.  "Easy", I say.  Japan and Germany were disarmed after WW2, and they have not aggressed and trespassed again.  There are countries in the world that have not fought wars. We can learn from them.  Canada and New Zealand did not join the Coalition of the Willing to Kill.  Wars must be banned, and warring nations shamed and held accountable.  If Germany and Japan can learn peace, so can the USA, Britain and Australia.

 

I thank all those who came to court, others who sent messages of support, and everyone for your stand against the curse of war, injustice and terrorism.  Our solidarity is our protection and our strength.

 

Below is the brochure which we 7 women attempted to distribute at the Shrine on 11/11/03.  We were stopped immediately and the police threatened to confiscate the brochure and have us removed.  The police said that we didn't have the parents' permission to give the brochures to the school children assembled at the Shrine.  Were children and parents in Afghanistan and Iraq asked for permission to invade their countries, bomb their homes, and kill their families? 

 

95% of the world is peaceful.  How have we allowed the 5% rogue element to hijack our world?  Only we can stop them.  Below are some quotes which inspire me.

 

“If you see injustice and do nothing, you have taken the side of the oppressor.” Desmond Tutu.

 

Rosa Parks said “NO”, when asked to give her bus seat to a white man.  We can also say “NO” and resist war, injustice and terrorism.

 

“There is only one thing more wicked than the desire to command – and that is the will to obey.”

 

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”  Krishnamurti

 

Love

 

Reta Kaur

Women for Peace: No Weapons No Wars

Melbourne , Australia

womenforpeace@live.com.au

ph 93861071

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Remembrance Day

11^th November 03

 

 

A peace action in memory of all children,

women and men killed in all wars

 

No More Wars

Peace in the 21-century

 

“In a time of universal deceit telling

the truth is a revolutionary act.” George Orwell

 

Your country is best served by living – not by dying! Not by killing strangers – children, women, men in distant lands who have done us no harm.

 

What is the point of wearing poppies today…if we support the terrorism of war and the slaughter of human beings for the rest of the year? The promise in “Lest we forget” demands that we work for peace every day and in every place.

 

 

A Prayer for Peace at The Shrine on Remembrance Day, 11/11/03: Not in our name will wars be fought…

It is our human right and civic duty as women and world citizens to protest at every opportunity against all acts of terrorism, wars, invasions, occupations, and the manufacture of weapons.

There is no point in wearing poppies and commemorating Remembrance Day and then supporting the terrorism of war and the slaughter of human beings for the rest of the year.  The promise of “Lest we forget” demands that we work for peace every day.

As a human race we have fouled our own nest.  Consider our history:

60,000 Australian men died in World War 1, in a war the politicians promised to end all wars. 

 

60 million people killed, including 6 million Jews, in World War 2. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki vapourised thousands instantly.

 

30 million people killed since 1945 worldwide in wars, invasions and occupations including more than two million in Vietnam and Cambodia.

 

“I must fulfil the responsibility of a survivor, on behalf of the dead who cannot speak for themselves; I must say what should be said and do what should be done.”  Requiem (1973) by a woman, Shizuko Go, in a novel about the bombing of Okinawa.

 

War and violence are now addictions, carefully perpetuated by a universal, male culture of violence exploited by the arms industry and supported by governments and politicians.  The promise of “Lest we forget” is a lie when younger generations are brainwashed and recruited into the culture of war by the military.  There are no military heroics in the murder of civilians, rape, and destruction.  There are no military heroics for the Coalition of the Willing & Killing in the bombing of an impoverished Afghanistan and a disarmed Iraq. 

 

“Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligation of obedience.  Therefore, (individuals) have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”  Nuremberg Tribunal (1947)

 

60% of women in Afghanistan are widows and 90% of them suffer from mental illness.  There are no figures yet from Iraq.  $166 billion is the present cost of the invasion and occupation of these two countries. 

 

90% of war casualties are civilians, 80% women and children.

80% of refugees are women and children.

80% of the world’s poor are women and children.

 

There is not enough money for education, health, paid maternity, child-care, for the aged and homeless.  But there is a river of money for wars.

People don’t make wars.  Parliaments, politicians, the military, and the weapons industry do.  They do it with our taxes.  They must be stopped.

 

The 21-century must be dedicated to peace.  Wars cost billions, Peace is free.  A peaceful world is possible, and ordinary people around the world will make it happen. 

 

Recruiting for Peace – Join today. 

 

Women for Peace: No Weapons No Wars

Email: womenforpeace@optusnet.com.au

www.womenforpeace.org.au

 

 

Women for Peace gathered for a photograph at Flinders Station after the arrests at the Shrine on 11 November 03

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Reta Kaur – Not Guilty

Peace activist acquitted in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 24/11/04 of criminal damage to two marble statues outside the USA Consulate.

When the USA and its Coalition of the Willing & Killing began bombing a disarmed Iraq on 20 March 03, Women for Peace and the Moreland Peace Group held a vigil outside the USA Consulate.  On hearing the news of the bombing, Reta Kaur, 59, teacher and peace keeper, started weeping, and in her moment of terrible grief, she wrote, “The Killing has Started!” with red water soluble paint on two marble statues outside the USA Consulate.  She was charged with $9080 damage as the clean up cost.

 Reta Kaur pleaded Not Guilty at the contested hearing.

The criminalisation of a peaceful protest, in the midst of the horror of an illegal war and 100,000 Iraqis dead, was resolved  by magistrate Hodgens who found Reta not guilty.  He found that Reta had no intention of causing damage, and did not believe or know that the water soluble paint was likely to cause damage.  She had also offered to wash off the paint but was arrested and charged.  Magistrate Hodgens accepted that Reta was overcome with grief at the news of the bombing.

“I simply lost it when I heard the news of the bombing.  I became, in that moment, a demented woman weeping for the people of Iraq, and grieving at our own civilised inhumanity” Reta said.

According to lawyer Peter Noble, the case was based on the legal point about what constituted the requisite intent.  “It wasn’t a question of what an ordinary person would think would cause the damage.  It was a subjective question of what the defendant thought.  Ms Kaur honestly believed that no damage would be caused to the statues by her action.  The decision is a victory for justice because it demonstrates the proper application of legal principle to the unusual circumstances of this case, and has rightly returned a verdict of acquittal.”

The case was heard before a packed court of supporters on 19 & 24 November 04.

Reta Kaur was represented pro bono by Peter Noble and Dan Nicholson from Fitzroy Legal Service, Tanja Kovac of Ryan Maloney Anderson, barristers Chris Maxwell and Shivani Pillai.

 

Reta Kaur, wearing the USA flag and a child’s bloodied dress pinned to it, protests in Melbourne against the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq & Afghanistan.

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 Women for Peace - One year peace  vigil at the USA Consulate, Melbourne

Women for Peace kept a one year vigil at the USA Consulate in Melbourne from 6 March 03 to 22 March 04, marking one year of the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq led by the USA.  From April 03, we were present every Monday, witnesses, shaming and holding the USA accountable for the crimes against humanity. Below are some pictures from the vigil.

 

Banner outside the USA Consulate in Melbourne

 

The Clothesline of War & Pain outside the USA Consulate in Melbourne

Tree outside US consulate

Street theatre outside the USA Consulate in Melbourne

 

Hooded and chained captives in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and a Prime Minister who says: "I'll do it again."

 

Guantanamo Bay - Women’s Protest Action,

Southbank, Melbourne

4 July 2004, American Independence Day

 

The Issues and Abuses

 

• The possibility of indefinite detention
• Trial by military 
• No appeal
• Access to family, friends, lawyers and doctors severely limited
• Torture, cruel and inhuman treatment 
• Using photos of loved ones against you 
• Beaten until you bleed from your ears and nose
• High possibility of being totally innocent
• Others detained over three years have now been released, without trial, and without any compensation or apology
• Justice USA & Australian style

 

These are some of the reasons why on July 4^th, American independence day, I donned an orange uniform, put a black hood over my head, and locked myself in a cage on Southbank promenade, a busy shopping and restaurant strip in Melbourne.  This was a protest against Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and of the Australian Government’s immoral complicity in this injustice.

I did not care that I might embarrass myself, or be abused by Guantanamo supporters, or assaulted or threatened by police.  What I care about is that two Australian citizens are currently detained without rights in Guantanamo Bay.  I am sick, angry and disgusted at the USA’s open, notorious and blatant violation of every single human rights doctrine since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.  I am sick, angry and disgusted at my own government’s support of this and its betrayal of its own citizens.

On July 4^th, Women for Peace and Aussies against Guantanamo Bay took the protest to the Australian public. 

Being in cage, with freedom all around you is a very confronting experience.  I found it draining and mentally exhausting.  It wasn’t easy; it was daunting and frightening.  I was entrapped in a cage, exposed for all to see, exposed to abuse and ridicule.

But this is nothing compared to Guantanamo Bay.  I could be released from the cage at any time – they cannot.  I could choose to take the hood off.  There are some detainees who have been hooded for over 5 months.  I had the support of the wonderful Women for Peace.  Letters from family to Guantanamo Bay detainees have the word ‘love’ blacked out.  I did think at times whether it was worth it and whether I would have the courage to go on.  But I went on, to tell the public of the atrocities that are happening now to our fellow human beings in Guantanamo Bay.  At the time I was in the cage, it was possible that someone was being interrogated and tortured.  Or it is possible that an Extreme Reaction Force (ERF) had burst into a cage, and was beating the detainee senseless, or humiliating them as we saw in the pictures from Abu Ghraib.

I could not have done the action without Women for Peace.  They provided the moral, physical and emotional support. A human rights travesty was brought to the public, and I will do so again and again until Guantanamo prison is shut down!

Saskia Hunter

 

Saskia in the cage, like David Hicks, Mamdouh Habib, hundreds of Afghans and other men held without trial since the attack and invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001

 

Women for Peace street theatre on Guantanama Bay, at Southbank, Melbourne

 

 

President Bush's visit to Australia in 2003

 

                                           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Women's street theatre - the collateral damage of war - children, women, men, grandparents, suffering for generations, the total failure of imagination, the curse of war.  Why do we have it?  Who does it serve?

Millions of Australians marched and prayed that the USA and its Coalition would listen to the United Nations and the weapons inspectors and not invade Iraq. Our peace marches and prayers were unheeded. The 21-century, only three-years-old, has started with utter violence. Peaceful people all over the world have been terrorised by the violent acts of 11 September 01 when 3016 people were killed, to the war of retaliation and revenge unleashed by the American government on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq where thousands of people have been killed. War is also terrorism. Amerozi, and other Bali bombers, have been tried and sentenced to death for crimes against humanity. Bush, Blair and Howard are responsible for the slaughter of thousands in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last 2 years. They must also be tried for crimes against humanity.

Not a single Afghan was among the hijackers on 11 September. The masterminds behind the hijacking have not been brought to trial as Indonesia has done within a year. Yet Afghanistan, the poorest country in the world, suffered saturated bombing to find one man - Osama Bin Laden. No figures are available of Afghan dead. Bush is responsible for the war crimes in Afghanistan.

Bush, Blair and Howard lied to the world about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were used by Saddam in defence, nor have they been found since the occupation. The terrorism of war was unleashed on an unarmed country and a civilian population, killing to date more than 10,000 Iraqis. These are also crimes against humanity and must be added to the deaths on 11 September and the Bali Bombings.

The USA refuses to join the International Criminal Court, has 9000 nuclear weapons, and uses billions to destroy black and third world nations. Saddam's dictatorship has been replaced by USA and corporate dictatorship, and invasion is globalisation by other means. Wars and global injustice are the prime causes of terrorism, and the USA has sponsored these in the last 50 years.

World opinion is now the only just opposition to the violence of terrorism and the terrorism of wars. Send a message to President Bush, John Howard, to all warmongers and terrorists, that justice and peace are the only just and moral solutions.

Women must lead the protests by their numbers as 80% of all civilian war casualties are women and children, and they also form 80% of all refugees.

Demand a ban on all wars and peace in the 21-century. Wars cost billions, Peace is free. USA could be a friend to the world, and then it could "... see how beautiful it is to be gentle instead of brutal, safe instead of scared. Befriended instead of isolated. Loved instead of hated" (Arundhati Roy, 2003). Let's tell this to President Bush when he arrives.

 

11 September Vigil at the USA Consulate, Melbourne

Women for Peace will have a special vigil on Thursday, 11 September 03, from 10am to 4pm, at the USA Consulate at 553 St Kilda Road to mark the 2nd anniversary of the terrorists attacks on New York and Washington. The vigil is to express sorrow and grief at all deaths: in USA, Afghanistan and Iraq. Please bring flowers from your gardens, words from your hearts, and join us as witnesses to say, "Peace in the 21st century." Men and women welcome.

Shizuko Go, a Japanese woman, wrote in her 1973 war novel Requiem: I must fulfill the responsibility of a survivor, on behalf of the dead who cannot speak for themselves; I must say what should be said and do what should be done.

Terrorism is war and war is also terrorism. We question why the USA did not follow the principles of law and justice in arresting and prosecuting the masterminds behind the terrorists' attacks on 11/9 as Indonesia has done with the Bali bombers? We ask why the richest country in the world began an immediate bombardment of Afghanistan, the poorest country, when none of the hijackers were Afghans? We question why the USA used terrorists' methods in the assumption of collective guilt and collective punishment of the entire nation of Afghanistan and then Iraq? We ask why the Afghan men, captured and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay in the most inhumane conditions, have not been charged and brought to trial in open courts? We ask why women and children are made to suffer in Afghanistan and Iraq and the countries destroyed?

The USA government appears to have used the tragedy of the 11 September attacks as a launching pad for further global domination with its military power. This will only result in more 11 Septembers, and more wars. We ask the USA to use its wealth and power to be a friend of the world. If the billions of dollars wasted on death and destruction were used to help and heal, USA "…will be greeted joyously by the rest of the world. And you will see how beautiful it is to be gentle instead of brutal, safe instead of scared. Befriended instead of isolated. Loved instead of hated". (Arundhati Roy, 2003)...

 

Boycott Corporate USA Products

Women for Peace: No weapons No wars, & Global Boycott for Peace

Launch: The Melbourne Boycott of USA Products

Protest Actions in Melbourne at: Nike, Starbucks, McDonalds in Swanston Street, Borders Bookshop, Carlton

Consumer boycott is the powerful action by millions around the world who believe, march, and pray for peace. Don't let your money flow freely and ignorantly into the pockets of those whose actions you oppose. Disobey with your dollars! Make your next purchase a conscious choice for peace, justice and the environment.

Some suggested Corporations: McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Hungry Jacks, KFC, Starbucks, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Kraft, Shell, Caltex, Nike, General Electric, Hoover, Amway, Bristol Myers, Squibb, Borders, Revlon, American Express, Philip Morris, Motorola, Monsanto, other food items, cosmetics, clothing, travel, films, toys, etc.

Research your own lists, buy alternative, talk, question, join the "Shopping Trolley Defiance". No act is too small or insignificant; the symbolic power of peaceful resistance transforms individuals.

Economic boycotts work. The USA used them against China, USSR, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Iraq, etc. The world used them against South Africa.

Peaceful direct action and world opinion form the just opposition to terrorism, war and global USA imperialism.

Wars cost billions, Peace is free
Mobilising the Believers
Email: womenforpeace@live.com.au
Women for Peace: PO Box 2111 Lygon St. North, Brunswick East, Vic.3057

 

Women for Peace: No Weapons no Wars - the formation of local groups
Gillian Collins from Cowes, Phillip Island, collected donations from local residents and put an advertisement in the local paper supporting peace. A group immediately formed around her. They have meetings, plan local actions and came as a group to the Peace Rally on 14/2/03 and marched with up to 200,000 people in Melbourne.
Contact: Gillian Collins email: gicron@waterfront.net.au

Another way is to stand outside your shopping centre, or your children's school with a peace placard, a petition, or a list for names. People are keen to join neighbourhood groups. A group can start with 5 people, with 2, from 1 person.

Form groups with your family network, friends, colleagues, people you play sport with, with anyone who supports peace in the 21 century. Give it any name you wish, paint a banner, meet, talk and march in the millions to end all wars. There is no power on earth that can stop the march of peaceful people.

Brochures and other peace literature can be downloaded from this web site, from the Victorian Peace Network, and badges are available by contacting Reta Kaur at womenforpeace@live.com.au

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