This list of peace activists includes people who proactively advocate diplomatic, non-military resolution of political disputes, usually through nonviolent means.

A peace activist is an activist of the peace movement.

Jane Addams

Martti Ahtisaari

Vittorio Arrigoni

Joan Baez

Ernesto Balducci

Daniel Berrigan

Frida Berrigan

Philip Berrigan

Vera Brittain

Elihu Burritt

Noam Chomsky

Robert J.H.P. Clelland

Rachel Corrie

David Cortright

Frances Crowe

Godfried Danneels

Dorothy Day

Élie Ducommun

Mel Duncan

Shirin Ebadi

Albert Einstein

Daniel Ellsberg

Tom Fox

Comfort Freeman

Mahatma Gandhi

William Lloyd Garrison

Arthur Gish

G. Simon Harak

Keir Hardie

George Harrison

Sidney Hinkes

Emily Hobhouse

Abbie Hoffman

Aldous Huxley

Khawaja Zafar Iqbal

Michael Jackson

Kathy Kelly

Robert F. Kennedy

Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan

Martin Luther King Jr.

George Lansbury

John Lennon

Julian Lennon

Charles Lindbergh

Staughton Lynd

Paul McCartney

Mairead Corrigan Maguire

Bob Marley

Rigoberta Menchú

Thomas Merton

Macy Morse

A.J. Muste

Abie Nathan

Huey Newton

Alfred Nobel

Linus Pauling

Lindis Percy

Jeannette Rankin

Dahlia Ravikovitch

Henry Richard

Oscar Romero

Jerry Rubin

Sophie Scholl

Colin Scott

Bobby Seale

Martin Sheen

Dick Sheppard

Toma Sik

Jeanmarie Simpson

Samantha Smith

C. Maxwell Stanley

Olaf Stapledon

Cat Stevens

Tenzin Gyatso (Dalai Lama)

Eve Tetaz

Thich Nhat Hanh

Leo Tolstoy

Jo Vallentine

Mordechai Vanunu

Sérgio Vieira de Mello

Kurt Vonnegut

Jody Williams

Brian Willson

John Howard Yoder

Yoko Ono

Neil Young

Howard Zinn

See also

Anti-war

Direct action

Pacifism

Peace

Peace churches

Resistance movement

Category:Pacifism Category:Peace

cy:Ymgyrchydd heddwch da:Fredsaktivist he:פעיל שלום

Brian William Haw (7 January 1949 – 18 June 2011) was an English protester and peace campaigner who lived for almost ten years in a camp in London's Parliament Square from 2001, in a protest against UK and US foreign policy. He began his protest before the 2001 United States attacks, and became a symbol of the anti-war movement over the policies of both the United Kingdom and the United States in Afghanistan and later Iraq. At the 2007 Channel 4 Political Awards he was voted Most Inspiring Political Figure.

Early life

Haw was born in Woodford Green, Essex, a twin and the eldest of five. He grew up in neighbouring Barking and in Whitstable, Kent. His father, who had been one of the first British soldiers to enter the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, worked in a betting office. He committed suicide by gassing himself when Haw was 13. Haw was apprenticed to a boat-builder from the age of 16 and then entered the Merchant Navy as a deckhand.

Personal life

As an evangelical Christian, Haw visited Northern Ireland during The Troubles as well as the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Haw worked with troubled youngsters in Redditch, Worcestershire, where he lived with his wife Kay and their seven children until he left them in 2001 to begin his Parliament Square protest. The couple divorced in 2003.

Parliament Square protests

On 2 June 2001, he began camping in Parliament Square in central London in a one-man political protest against war and foreign policy (initially, the sanctions against Iraq). By his own account, he was first inspired to take up his vigil after seeing the images and information produced by the Mariam Appeal, an anti-sanctions campaign. Haw justified his campaign on a need to improve his children's future. He only left his makeshift campsite in order to attend court hearings, surviving on food brought by supporters. Support for Haw's protest came from former Labour cabinet minister Tony Benn and activist/comedian Mark Thomas. Among the artwork displayed was a Banksy stencil of two soldiers painting over a peace sign and Leon Kuhn's anti-war political caricature ''3 Guilty Men'', which, together with Kuhn's ''The Proud Parents'', Mark Wallinger later displayed in his recreation at the Tate in 2007.

In October 2002 Westminster City Council attempted to prosecute Haw for causing an obstruction to the pavement, but the case failed as Haw's banners did not impede movement. The continuous use of a megaphone by Haw led to objections by Members of Parliament who had offices close to Haw's protest camp. The House of Commons Procedure Committee held a brief inquiry in summer 2003 which heard evidence that permanent protests in Parliament Square could provide an opportunity for terrorists to disguise explosive devices, and resulted in a recommendation that the law be changed to prohibit them. The Government passed a provision banning all unlicensed protests, permanent or otherwise, in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (sections 132 to 138); however, because Mr Haw's protest was on-going and residing on Parliament Square prior to the enactment of the Act, it was unclear whether the Act applied to him (see Legal Action, below).

In the 2005 general election Haw stood as a candidate in the Cities of London and Westminster in order to further his campaign and oppose the Act which was yet to come in to force. He won 298 votes (0.8 percent), making a speech against the ongoing presence of UK troops in Iraq at the declaration of the result.

Legal action

As preparation for implementing the new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 began, Haw won an application for judicial review on 28 July 2005, successfully arguing that a technical defect in the act meant it did not apply in his case. The act states that demonstrations must have authorisation from the police "when the demonstration starts", and Haw asserted that his demonstration had begun before the passage of the act, which was not made retroactive. Although the commencement order made to bring the act into force had made reference to demonstrations begun before the act came into force, there was no power for the commencement order to extend the scope of the act.

The government appealed against the judgement, and on 8 May 2006 the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and therefore declared that the act did apply to him. The court found that the intent of parliament was clearly to apply to all demonstrations in Parliament Square regardless of when they had begun:

In the meantime Haw had applied for permission to continue his demonstration, and received it on condition that his display of placards is no more than 3 m wide (among other things). Haw was unwilling to comply and the police referred his case to the Crown Prosecution Service; a number of supporters began camping with him in order to deter attempts to evict him.

In the early hours of 23 May 2006, 78 police arrived and removed all but one of Haw's placards citing continual breached conditions of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 as their reason for doing so. Ian Blair (head of the Met. police at the time) later admitted that the operation to remove Haw's placards had cost £27,000 The actions of the police were criticised by members of the Metropolitan Police Authority at its monthly meeting on 25 May 2006. Haw appeared at Bow Street Magistrates' Court on 30 May, when he refused to enter a plea. The court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, and he was bailed to return to court on 11 July 2006. At a licensing hearing at Westminster City Council on 30 June 2006, Haw was granted limited permission to use a loudspeaker in the space allowed to him.

On 22 January 2007 Haw was acquitted on the grounds that the conditions he was accused of breaching were not sufficiently clear, and that they should have been imposed by a police officer of higher rank. District Judge Purdy ruled: "I find the conditions, drafted as they are, lack clarity and are not workable in their current form."

Documentary

Brian Haw was featured in the 2006 documentary, ''TerrorStorm''. Director and narrator Alex Jones interviewed Haw and even joined in his protest of Parliament by answering Haw's inquiry, via megaphone, about the Statue of Liberty by saying she had been picked up on suspicion that she was a member of Al-Qaeda. Haw (played by an actor) also appeared briefly in the 2007 drama ''The Trial of Tony Blair''. There is also a documentary film made about him by Mahmoud Shoolizadeh, ''A Man Called Brian'', which shows interviews with him and analysed the Iraq war. This film has participated in some international film festivals.

Director of Public Prosecutions v Haw

In the case of Director of Public Prosecutions v Haw, the judgement of the court, delivered by Lord Phillips CJ, included the following: :3. The issues raised by the case stated are as follows: ::i) Whether the statutory powers available to the Commissioner of Police under Section 134 of SOCA can be exercised by a subordinate on his behalf; ::ii) Whether the conditions imposed on Mr Haw were ultra vires, or incompatible with Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights ('ECHR'), as unreasonable or insufficiently clear.

This was an adjourned hearing of an appeal by way of case stated by the Director of Public Prosecutions against a decision of District Judge Purdy in the City of Westminster Magistrates Court on 22 January 2007. The judge ruled that there was no case for the Respondent, Brian Haw, to answer on a charge of knowingly failing to comply with a condition imposed under Section 134 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 ('SOCA') in respect of a demonstration in Parliament Square. The hearing before the Administrative Court was adjourned because Mr Haw had not been served with relevant documents in time to give them proper consideration.

Directions hearing, 18 November 2008

Haw sought a large number of directions from the court on 18 November 2008. Afer some delay the directions of the court were eventually published in March 2009:

''Haw, R (on the application of) v Southwark Crown Court & Ors'' [2009] EWHC 379 (Admin) (3 March 2009)

The court was un-persuaded that a full transcript of the hearing was necessary, even though Haw claimed that it would show that the court side-stepped the issue as to the legality of the seizure.

Tucker v Director of Public Prosecutions

The case of Tucker v Director of Public Prosecutions, 2007 was an appeal by way of case stated. The appellant, Barbara Tucker, was convicted under Section 132 (1)(c) of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA), of being within the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court, and carrying on unauthorised demonstration by herself in a public place in a designated area, namely Parliament Square. Her defence was that Haw had invited her to join him in his demonstration. He gave evidence on her behalf to that effect. The magistrate said: "Had I accepted this evidence (which I did not) it would have been argued that the allegation that she had 'carried on an unauthorised demonstration by herself ..... ' could not have been made out, and further more (in my view incorrectly) that it would provide a defence by saying that as Mr Haw is safe from prosecution anyone who joins him is also safe." The question posed by the magistrate was: "Was it lawful under section 6 (1) HRA to convict the appellant?" The Administrative Court held that SOCPA was not incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (specifically, Articles 10 (freedom of expression) and 11 (freedom of assembly)), and that Tucker's conviction was therefore lawful.

January 2008 injury and arrest

On 12 January, Haw was observing a protest against the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, outside Downing Street. Seven people were arrested (including Haw), who said ''"I was filming the students lying down in the road when one officer stepped forward, as I was walking back, and pushed the camera with his hand. It struck my face."'' He accused the police of using "violent and humiliating force".

2008 London mayoral elections

In December 2007 press releases stated that Haw had declared himself a candidate in the London Mayoral Elections in May 2008, but eventually he did not stand. On 17 April 2008 he joined Frank Maloney and Winston McKenzie in support of the Christian Choice candidate Alan Craig.

25 May 2010 arrest

On 25 May 2010 the day of the State Opening of Parliament for the new Conservative-Liberal coalition government, Haw was arrested at 8:30 am.

Illness and death

In September 2010 Haw was diagnosed with lung cancer. On 1 January 2011 he left England to receive treatment in Berlin. Haw, who was described as a chain smoker, continued to smoke cigarettes until his death. Haw died in Germany in the early hours of 18 June 2011 of lung cancer. He is survived by seven children.

Reacting to news of Haw's death, Tony Benn said "Brian Haw was a man of principle [...] his death marks the end of a historic enterprise by a man who gave everything to support his beliefs". At his death Al Jazeera described him as an "unsung hero". Mark Wallinger said "I admired [Haw's] single-minded tenacity. His rectitude was a mirror that the people in the building opposite couldn't bear. [...] Now that he's gone, who else have we got?". The British MP John McDonnell has called for a statue of Haw to be assembled to celebrate peace. British artist Banksy honoured Haw with a tribute on his website.

London Assembly Member Jenny Jones called for Westminster Council to erect a blue plaque for Brian Haw immediately, bypassing English Heritage's criteria that the person commemorated should have been dead for two decades or passed the centenary of their birth, whichever is the earlier.

In culture

In January 2007, former Turner Prize nominee Mark Wallinger recreated Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest in its entirety as an exhibition at Tate Britain, titled State Britain. Running the length of the Duveen Gallery, ''State Britain'' was a painstaking reconstruction of the display confiscated by the Metropolitan Police in 2006. It included 500 weather-worn banners, photos, peace flags, and messages from well-wishers collected by Haw over the duration of the Peace Protest, as well as his self-constructed shelter. In December 2007 Wallinger's work won the Turner Prize.

The London-based band XX Teens recorded a song "For Brian Haw", which was included on their 2008 album ''Welcome To Goon Island''. The track incorporated a statement by Haw himself about his motivations for the protest.

Free music pioneer Sean Terrington Wright dedicated his 12th CD album "War No More", released in 2008, to Haw.

Haw was featured in the short length documentary ''Maria: 24hr Peace Picket'' by Iranian film director Parviz Jahed, about fellow peace campaigner Maria Gallastegui.

In 2009 Youth Music Theatre: UK developed the music theatre production ''According to Brian Haw...'' based on reactions by young people to Haw's life, 9/11 and the Iraq war. This was perfomed at the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth.

Zia Trench's debut play, ''The State We're In'', based on Haw's life, was performed for the first time at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe, featuring Michael Byrne in the lead role and directed by Justin Butcher. Trench said: "There is a messianic illusion around him, something so Jesus-like about him. "He has taken on our fight but what has this cost him? The play looks at the man behind the protest and how battles fought for liberty can cost a man his wife, home and sanity."

See also

Concepcion Picciotto, a Spanish-American protester who has lived in a similar peace camp outside the White House since the 1980s

Mark Thomas

Iraq sanctions

References

External links

Brian Haw No Longer Allowed to do Peaceful Protest at Parliament Square

Not the Queen's Speech

Parliament Square Brian Haw's supporter's site

Brian Haw: Veteran peace campaigner who occupied Parliament Square for a decade in protest at war (The Independent 20th June 2011)

Rebel With A Cause (The Independent 20th June 2011)

Death of Brian Haw prompts rallying to the peace cause (The Independent 20th June 2011)

Mark Wallinger: Brian Haw was the conscience of a nation grown quiescent (The Independent 20th June 2011)

Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, sections 132 et seq

List of votes relating to Protesting in Parliament Square from Public Whip

Brian Haw speaking about his 2000 days of protest (45mins approx) from Dissident Vox

3D Panorama of the peace protest (requires QuickTime)

Metropolitan Police map of the exclusion zone

http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,,2004876,00.html

Video showing his January 2008 arrest

FredsVagt Christiansborg, the parallel demonstration in Copenhagen, Denmark

Video interview – Brian Haw in his own words

A tribute to Brian Haw on RechargedMagazine.com (includes 30 minutes of previously unreleased interview footage)

Category:1949 births Category:2011 deaths Category:British anti–Iraq War activists Category:British anti-war activists Category:British Merchant Navy personnel Category:Cancer deaths in Germany Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:English evangelicals Category:Peace camps Category:People from Barking Category:People from Whitstable Category:Protests in the United Kingdom

ar:براين هو cy:Brian Haw es:Brian Haw eu:Brian Haw pl:Brian Haw

Name	Juliano Mer-Khamis
Birth name	Juliano Khamis
Birth date	May 15, 1958
Birth place	Nazareth, Israel
Death date	April 04, 2011
Death place	Jenin, West Bank
Death cause	Assassination
resting place	Kibbutz Ramot Menashe, Israel
Occupation	Actor, director, activist
Years active	1984–2011}}

Juliano Mer-Khamis (, ; ‎29 May 1958 4 April 2011) was an Israeli actor, director, filmmaker and political activist of Jewish and Christian Arab parentage. On 4 April 2011, he was assassinated by a masked gunman in the Palestinian city of Jenin, where he established the Freedom Theatre.

Biography

Juliano Khamis (later Mer-Khamis) was born in Nazareth, the son of Arna Mer-Khamis, a Jewish communist, and Saliba Khamis, an Israeli-Arab intellectual and one of the leaders of the Israeli Communist Party in the 1950s. He had two brothers, Spartacus and Abir. His grandfather was Gideon Mer, a scientist who pioneered the study of malaria during the British Mandate. In his youth, he adopted his maternal surname, Mer, and served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a combat soldier in the Paratroopers Brigade. In a 2009 interview with Israel Army Radio, Mer-Khamis said of his background: "I am 100 percent Palestinian and 100 percent Jewish."

Mer-Khamis was married to Jenny, a Finnish activist he met in Haifa. They had a son, Jay, and were expecting the birth of twins at the time of his death.

Film and acting career

Mer-Khamis's first film, ''The Little Drummer Girl'', was an American thriller from 1984 directed by George Roy Hill and starring Diane Keaton, which dealt with the Israeli-Arab conflict. He starred in Avi Nesher's film, ''Za'am V'Tehilah'' (1985). Later he appeared in such Israeli films as ''51 Bar'' (1985), ''Wedding in Galilee'' (1987), ''Tel Aviv Stories'' (1992), ''Zohar'' (1993), ''Under the Domim Tree'' (1994), and ''Overture 1812'' (1997). He appeared in several films by Amos Gitai: ''Kedma'', ''Esther'' (1986) and ''Kippur'' (2000).

In 2002, Mer-Khamis was nominated for the Ophir award for Best Actor for his role in ''Kedma''. One of the last films in which he appeared was the Palestinian film ''Salt of this Sea'' (2008), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

He performed on stage with Beit Lessin Theater and Habima Theatre. In 2003, he produced and directed his first documentary film, ''Arna's Children'', together with Danniel Danniel. The film is about his mother's work to establish a children's theatre group in Jenin during the 1980s. Seven years after the death of his mother, and following the battle in Jenin in 2002, Mer-Khamis returned to Jenin to meet and interview the children who participated in the theater, and found out that some became militants and were killed.

In 2006, following a wave of international support which was followed by his film, Mer-Khamis opened a community theater for children and adults in Jenin, called The Freedom Theatre.

The Freedom Theatre

In 2006, Mer-Khamis established the Freedom Theatre along with Zakaria Zubeidi, a former military leader of the Jenin Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Jonatan Stanczak, Swedish-Israeli activist, and Dror Feiler, Swedish-Israeli artist. The Freedom Theatre is a community theatre that provides opportunities for the children and youth of the Jenin Refugee Camp by developing skills, self-knowledge and confidence and using the creative process as a model for social change.

Death

Mer-Khamis was shot by masked gunmen in front of the theater he founded in Jenin. He was rushed to the Jenin Hospital, where he was pronounced dead after his arrival. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the killing saying that "We cannot stand silent in the face of this ugly crime, it constitutes a grave violation that goes beyond all principles and human values and it contravenes with the customs and ethics of co-existence."

Based on the testimony of an eyewitness, Palestinian police charged Mujahed Qaniri, from Jenin's refugee camp, with having carried out the murder. There are varying accounts of Qamiri's affiliation, some describe him as a former member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades who defected to Hamas, but a Hamas spokesman has denied any involvement, describing this as a purely criminal incident.

Filmography

''Not Quite Paradise'' ''Za'am V'Tehilah'' ''51 Bar'' ''Esther (film) ''Wedding in Galilee (Urs al-Jalil)'' ''Berlin-Yerushalaim'' ''Sipurei Tel-Aviv (Tel Aviv Stories)'' ''Zohar (film) ''Deadly Heroes'' ''Nothing to Lose (1994 film) ''Under the Domim Tree (Etz Hadomim Tafus)'' ''Yom Yom'' ''Overture 1812 (film) ''The Last Warrior (2000 film) ''Kippur'' ''Kedma (film) ''Arna's Children'' ''Tahara (film) ''Salt of this Sea'' ''Hadutha Saghira'' ''Miral''

Year !! Film !! Role !! Notes
1984	The Little Drummer Girl (film)>The Little Drummer Girl''	Julio
1985	|	Hassan (terrorist)
1985	|
1985	|	Thomas
1986	Esther'' ||	Haman (Bible)>Haman
1987	|	Officer
1989	|	Menahme
1993	|	Jeno
1993	Zohar'' ||	Morris
1993	|	Ramon
1994	Nothing to Lose'' ||	Antonio Valdez
1994	|	Ariel
1994	|	Jules
1997	Overture 1812'' ||
2000	The Last Patrol'' ||	Jesus Carrero
2000	|	The Captain
2002	Kedma'' ||	Moussa
2003	|	Himself	Won FIPRESCI Prize
2004	God's Sandbox (Tahara)'' ||	Nagim	Nominated for Best Actor
2008	|	Hiking leader	Palestinian submission for Oscar in "Best Foreign Language Film" category
2009	|	Israeli soldier
2010	|	Shaikh Saabah

Television and video

''Sweating Bullets(TV series) ''The Revolutionary (video) ''The Revolutionary II (video) ''Florentine (TV series) ''1000 Calories (movie) ''Dijihad!''

Year !! Title !! Role !! Notes
1995	Hostages (1992 TV series)>Hostages''	Ali
1992	Sweating Bullets'' ||	Melito	Series - played in "''Don't Say Nothing Bad About My Baby''" episode
1995	The Revolutionary'' ||	Centurion	Video
1996	The Revolutionary II'' ||	Centurion	Video
1998	Florentine'' ||	Remi	Series
2001	1000 Calories'' ||	Eitan Katz	TV movie
2006	|	Omar	TV movie

References

External links

The Murder of an Actor/Activist - slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Category:1958 births Category:2011 deaths Category:Deaths by firearm in the West Bank Category:People from Jenin Category:People from Nazareth Category:Arab citizens of Israel Category:Israeli activists Category:Israeli film directors Category:Israeli stage actors Category:Israeli actors Category:Israeli Jews Category:Palestinian Jews Category:Israeli murder victims Category:People murdered in the Palestinian territories

ar:جوليانو مير خميس de:Juliano Mer-Khamis el:Τζουλιάνο Μερ Καμίς es:Juliano Mer-Khamis fr:Juliano Mer-Khamis it:Juliano Mer-Khamis he:ג'וליאנו מר no:Juliano Mer-Khamis pl:Juliano Mer-Khamis pt:Juliano Mer-Khamis ru:Мер-Хамис, Джулиано fi:Juliano Mer-Khamis

name	Kathy Kelly
birth place	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
birth name	Kathy Kelly
occupation	Peace activist
years active	1978–present
education	Loyola University Chicago }}

Kathy Kelly (born 1952) is an American peace activist, pacifist and author, a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness, and currently a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She has been described as "probably the most respected leader in the American peace movement". As part of peace team work in several countries, she has traveled to Iraq twenty-six times, notably remaining in combat zones during the early days of both US-Iraq wars. She has been arrested more than sixty times at home and abroad, and written of her experiences among targets of U.S. military bombardment and inmates of U.S. prisons. She lives in Chicago.

Biography

Childhood and Schooling and Poverty Work 1953-1978

Kelly was born in 1953 in Chicago's Garfield Ridge neighborhood to parents Frank and Catherine Kelly. She attended St. Paul-Kennedy "shared-time" high school, which split her days between a Catholic institution where she was given the writings of Daniel Berrigan and Martin Luther King Jr. to read alongside biblical texts, and a desegregating public school where interracial violence was common. She obtained her BA from Loyola University Chicago working a succession of night jobs to help cover tuition, including a stint on a meat-packing factory line which inspired her to become a lifelong vegetarian. During these years she remembers being deeply moved by Alain Resnais' Holocaust documentary ''Night and Fog,'' by a lecture by Vietnam War activist Tom Cornell, and by the activist scripture writings of William Stringfellow.

Poverty and Peace Activist 1978-1996

After college in 1978, and while working on her MA in Religious Education (at Chicago Theological Seminary,) Kelly began volunteer work in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood (where she still resides), working at a local soup kitchen with a circle of activists, including future SOAW founder Roy Bourgeois, centered around Chicago's Francis of Assisi House, a homeless shelter in the Catholic Worker tradition. In 1980 she began work as a teacher of religion at St. Ignatius College Preparatory School. A Jesuit professional development grant enabled her to travel to Nicaragua in 1985 and participate in a fast led by Foreign Minister Miguel D'Escoto against U.S.-backed Contra activity. Returning to the U.S., she left St. Ignatius in 1986 in order to focus on activism including two years as a teacher in Uptown's Prologue High School serving marginalized low-income youth.

In August 1988, Kelly participated in the Missouri Peace Planting, trespassing at a nuclear missile silo near Kansas City, Missouri to plant corn on it. For this action she served nine months in a Lexington, KY maximum security prison.

In 1990 she joined the Gulf Peace Team, a delegation assembled to protest the imminent Persian Gulf War and spent the first 14 days of the air war encamped on the Iraq-Saudi border before evacuation to Baghdad and then Amman in Jordan where she helped coordinate relief work.

Kelly helped organize and participated in several nonviolent direct action teams in war zones outside Iraq: Bosnia in December 1992 and August 1993, and Haiti in the summer of 1994. She and Meyer divorced in 1994 although they have continued as friends.

Voices in the Wilderness 1996-2003

In 1993, after her return from Bosnia, Kelly became a full-time caregiver to her father, assisted (until his death in 2000) by a network of former Iraq peace team members now living in and around her and her father's shared Uptown apartment. In late 1995 Kelly and several other of these activists resolved to form Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end the U.S./U.N sanctions regime against Iraq. In a January 1996 letter, the activists wrote then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno a letter declaring an intention to travel to Iraq with food and medicine in violation of the sanctions. A return letter threatened the participants with separate 12-year prison sentences and fines of one million dollars each.

Between 1996 and 2003 Voices organized over seventy delegations to Iraq bringing food and medicine directly to Iraqi citizens in deliberate violation of both UN-imposed economic sanctions and US law. Participants refused to pay fines for these actions but instead solicited matching donations from supporters for supplies to distribute on repeat visits. Members sought to raise awareness at home with demonstrations, media appearances, and personal accounts of their delegation work. Kelly went on 26 of these delegations., for which they were sentenced to "time served" in a January 2011 ruling. The judge in the case had taken a 4-month recess to consider their claim to have entered the base in order to prevent a crime.

In May and June 2009, Kelly traveled to Pakistan with a small VCNV delegation, including activist Gene Stoltzfus, that met with organizations and families in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Shah Mansour,, Tarbella, and Lahore, reporting back with essays.

In January of 2010 Kelly was arrested in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building while taking part in a mock funeral, organized by Witness Against Torture, remembering Mani al-Utaybi, Yasser al-Zahrani, and Ali Abdullah Ahmed, three men then recently alleged to have been tortured to death in the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison complex. All participants of the protest were later acquitted in court.

In May 2010 Kelly made another Pakistan trip alongside activists Simon Harak, SJ and Josh Brollier. They met with families in the Swat Valley, Peshawar and Shah Mansur, as well as spending time in Rawalpindi, Islamabad, and Lahore. As part of this trip Kelly and Brollier travelled in Afghanistan as guests of the ''Emergency Surgical Center for Victims of War'', visiting Panjshir and First Aid Posts on the outskirts of Panjshir, Kabul, and Bagram (site of the Bagram Air Force Base). The stated intention of the trip was "learning more about conditions faced by ordinary people in Afghanistan."

Kelly made two other visits to Afghanistan in 2010, working closely with Bamiyan province's Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers. In October and November 2010 she visited the Afghan youths for one week in their home province before spending several weeks in Kabul, where she met with refugees from Helmand province and representatives of several NGOs, and wrote reports on her experience.

In December 2010, Kelly and six other Voices activists met with Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in Kabul to assist them in a brief activist campaign; the Afghan youth issued a "People's December Review" to counter President Barack Obama's December Review of the Afghan war, they hosted two international call-in days using the Skype internet phone service, and they conducted interviews, not only with NGO aid workers involved in the Oxfam America-authored "Nowhere to Turn" report, but with U.S. Professor Noam Chomsky (via a Skype connection), and (separately) with current and former Afghan parliamentarians Ramazan Bashardost and Malalai Joya. Kelly's delegation helped them post internet transcripts of most of these events on their website.

Kelly returned with Voices to Afghanistan in March and early April 2011.

On April 22, 2011 Kelly was among 37 protesters arrested in Syracuse, New York at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in a protest against drone warfare organized by the Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars.

Kelly spent June 22-July 9 in Athens, Greece as a passenger (along with retired colonel Ann Wright, "The Color Purple" author Alice Walker, and retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern) on ''The Audacity of Hope,'' the U.S. boat in Freedom Flotilla II, a campaign to sail to Gaza from international waters in defiance of the Israeli naval blockade. The Greek government refused to allow the ship to sail, based first on a third-party complaint concerning the ship's seaworthiness, and then in an open policy of opposition to the flotilla. The ship attempted to sail for international waters but was intercepted by armed coast card vessels and impounded. Kelly stayed a week in solidarity with the arrested Greek captain until bail could be arranged, then attempted to reach Gaza by plane in the "Flytilla", but was denied entry to Israel and returned to Greece.

Author and speaker

Kelly has reported on her time on peace teams and in prison in numerous articles for peace and religious journals, and for websites such as CounterPunch and CommonDreams.org. Several of her essays have appeared in books on the Iraq War. In 2005 she authored "Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison" (CounterPunch), collecting and expanding on her letters from Iraq and from prison. She is co-author of "Prisoners on Purpose: a Peacemakers Guide to Jails and Prison." (Progressive Foundation:1989), and co-editor of "War and Peace in the Gulf"(Spokesman:2001). She spends much of her time touring the country on speaking engagements for schools, churches, festivals, and activist groups from whom she accepts but does not require a stipend. Associates have commented in interviews on her heavy work and travel schedule, noting in one instance that "Jail is the only place she can rest."

"One way to stop the next war is to continue to tell the truth about this one."

"One of the most important "Spiritual Directors" in my life has been the Internal Revenue Service ... finding ways to live without owning property, relying on savings, or growing attached to a job ... Becoming a war tax refuser was one of the simplest decisions I've ever made."

"I want to be in touch with the people caught in a war at home. The war against the poor."

Bibliography, editing, and contributions

Kelly, Kathy (2005). ''Other Lands Have Dreams: from Baghdad to Pekin Prison''. Counterpunch Press. ISBN 1904859283.

Kelly, Kathy. "Raising Voices: The Children of Iraq, 1990-1999" in Arnove, Anthony (ed.) (2000). ''Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War,'' South End Press.

"Writings by Kathy Kelly". Voices for Creative Non-Violence (category search).

Bhatia, Bela; Drèze, Jean; Kelly, Kathy, eds. (2001). ''War and peace in the Gulf: testimonies of the Gulf Peace Team''. Spokesman Books.

Kelly, Kathy. "Searching for the truth in Jenin" in Nancy Stohlman, Nancy; Aladin, Laurieann eds. (2003). ''Live from Palestine'' South End Press. pp. 137-141.

Kelly, Kathy (June 2, 2006). ''Right Livelihood''. Common Dreams.

Kelly, Kathy (May 20, 2006). ''Eve of Departure''. Common Dreams.

Kelly, Kathy (May 28, 2006). ''Enduring Memories''. Common Dreams.

Kelly, Kathy. "Foreword" in Smith-Ferri, David (2011). ''With Children Like Your Own: Iraq and Afghanistan Poems, 2008-2011''. Haleys. ISBN: 978-1-884540-28-8

Further reading

Ferner, Mike (2006). "Courage Under Fire," in ''Inside the Red Zone,'' Praeger. pp. 85–91.

Sinker, Daniel (2001). "Voices in the Wilderness," in ''We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet:The Collected Interviews.'' Akashic Books. pp. 267–279

Notes

References

External links

Worse than an Earthquake: Peace Activist Kathy Kelly on the Destruction in Gaza. Interview. January 27, 2009. ''Democracy Now''.

Peace Activist Kathy Kelly on the Secret US War in Pakistan. Interview. June 10, 2010. ''Democracy Now''.

Voices in the Wilderness website.

Voices for Creative Nonviolence website.

Kathy Kelly Papers/VITW Records. Marquette University.

Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers website. Transcripts of December 2010 activities.

Category:American anti-war activists Category:American activists Category:American pacifists Category:Catholic Workers Category:Nonviolence advocates Category:Civil disobedience Category:Community organizing Category:American tax resisters Category:American educators Category:1953 births Category:Living people

de:Kathy Kelly (Friedensaktivistin)

name	Cindy Sheehan
birth date	July 10, 1957
birth place	Inglewood, California
occupation	Activist
children	}}

Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan (born July 10, 1957) is an American anti-war activist whose son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan was killed by enemy action during the Iraq War. Cindy Sheehan attracted national and international media attention in August 2005 for her extended anti-war protest at a makeshift camp outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch—a stand which drew both passionate support and angry criticism. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2008. She is a vocal critic of President Barack Obama's foreign policy, saying: "I don't think much has changed since the Bush administration."

Personal life

Cindy Sheehan was born in Inglewood, California in 1957. Her father worked at Lockheed while her mother raised her family. She graduated with honors from Cerritos College and studied history at UCLA. She worked as a youth minister at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Vacaville, California for eight years, and also coordinated an after-school program for at-risk middle school children for the City of Vacaville. In 1977 she married Patrick Sheehan, in Norwalk, California; they had four children, including Casey Sheehan (born in 1979), who was later killed in action in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Patrick Sheehan filed for divorce August 12, 2005, citing irreconcilable differences.

Anti-war campaign

Sheehan states she initially questioned the urgency of the invasion of Iraq, but did not become active in the anti-war effort until after her son's death. Sheehan and other military families met with United States President George W. Bush in June 2004 at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington, about three months after her son's death. In a June 24, 2004 interview with the Vacaville ''Reporter'', published soon after the meeting, she stated, "We haven't been happy with the way the war has been handled. The President has changed his reasons for being over there every time a reason is proven false or an objective reached." She also stated that President Bush was "... sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis.. I know [he] feels pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of God."

Sheehan gave another interview on October 4, 2004, stating that she did not understand the reasons for the Iraq invasion and never thought that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States. She further stated that her son's death had compelled her to speak out against the war.

During the presidential inauguration in January 2005, Sheehan traveled to Washington, DC to speak at the opening of "Eyes Wide Open: the Human Cost of War", a traveling exhibition created by the American Friends Service Committee that displays pairs of combat boots to represent US military casualties. She also traveled with the exhibition to other locations and donated her son Casey's boots, stating "Behind these boots is one broken-hearted family,"

Sheehan was one of the nine founding members of Gold Star Families for Peace, an organization she created in January 2005 with other families she met at the inauguration. It seeks to end the US occupation of Iraq, and provides support for families of soldiers killed in Iraq.

Sheehan attracted international attention in early August 2005, when she traveled to President Bush's Prairie Chapel Ranch, just outside Crawford, Texas, demanding a second meeting with the President. She told members of Veterans for Peace, "And the other thing I want him to tell me is 'just what was the noble cause Casey died for?' Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East." She also vowed not to pay her federal income tax for 2004 because that was the year her son was killed.

Sheehan's actions led supporters such as Rev. Lennox Yearwood, CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, to describe her as "the Rosa Parks of the antiwar movement." Later during the demonstration, Sheehan also gained the label of "Peace Mom" from the mainstream media.

Political views

Sheehan is a socialist, having worked closely with the Socialist Alternative beginning in 2010, appearing at events hosted by the party and its international affiliate, the Socialist Party in the United States and Britain. Sheehan has articulated revolutionary socialist and democratic socialist positions and called for a united socialist campaign for the United States presidency in 2012. She has stated that Karl Marx "was one of the most brilliant thinkers and political/social philosophers in modern history".

In March 2005, James Morris sent an e-mail to ABC's ''Nightline'' allegedly written by Sheehan that included the statements that Casey Sheehan "was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel" and that he had "joined the Army to protect America, not Israel." Sheehan denies the allegations: "I've never said that... Those aren't even words that I would say. I do believe that the Palestinian issue is a hot issue that needs to be solved, and it needs to be more fair and equitable, but I never said my son died for Israel." In a statement she implied that Morris modified the email, which Morris denied. Two other individuals stated they received a copy of the same email directly from Sheehan. Christopher Hitchens has criticized her and her comments as, "a vulgar producer of her own spectacle, and an embarrassment to her family and at best a shifty fantasist."

Political activism

Camp Casey

On August 6, 2005, Sheehan created a makeshift camp in a ditch by the side of the road about three miles (5 km) from President Bush's Prairie Chapel Ranch near Crawford, Texas and announced her intention to stay (sleeping in a pup tent at night) until she was granted a face-to-face meeting with the President. Sheehan started her protest the day the President started a planned five-week vacation. The encampment was publicized widely by the Mintwood Media Collective on behalf of Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out. A few days later, the media began referring to Sheehan's camp as "Camp Casey." She spent the next four weeks in Crawford (except for five days spent in California to see her elderly mother, who had suffered a stroke.) On some days as many as 1500 supporters visited Camp Casey, including members of the US Congress, as well as several notable actors, singers, and civil rights activists.

Gold Star Families for Peace, of which Sheehan is a founding member, released a TV commercial featuring Sheehan, broadcast on Crawford and Waco cable channels near Bush's ranch. The group conducted a walk to a police station just outside Bush's ranch and delivered a bundle of oversized letters written by them to First Lady Laura Bush, appealing to her as a mother to support their movement.

On August 16, Sheehan moved her camp closer to the Bush ranch after being offered the use of a piece of land owned by a supporter, Fred Mattlage, a third cousin of Larry Mattlage, a rancher who had fired a shotgun on his property near the demonstration site several days earlier.

In late August, Sheehan stated that she would continue to campaign against the Iraq war even if granted a meeting with Bush. She also announced the Bring Them Home Now Tour, to depart on September 1 and arrive in Washington, DC, on September 24 for three days of demonstrations. The tour which covered 42 cities in 26 states was publicized by the Mintwood Media Collective, and garnered international media coverage. On the third day, Sheehan and about 370 other anti-war activists were arrested for demonstrating on the White House sidewalk.

Later 2005 activism

In September 2005, Sheehan moved into the downstairs portion of the Berkeley, California home of Stephen and Virginia Pearcy. Sheehan lived with the Pearcys for just over a year, during which time she travelled extensively to various peace events and wrote two books. Sheehan's friendship with the Pearcys arose out of a February 2005 gathering where she attended a highly charged free speech and anti-war event at the Pearcys' Sacramento home where Stephen Pearcy had placed a controversial display of a soldier with the words, "Bush Lied, I Died." The display received national media coverage. In the pouring rain during a media frenzy, Sheehan and then-husband, Pat Sheehan, and about two hundred supporters of free speech and peace stood on one side of the street to defend the Pearcys’ message, while a roughly equal number of opponents of the Pearcys’ display (including Melanie Morgan and members of Move America Forward) stood on the other side of the street while a line of police kept the two groups apart. Between 2005 and 2007, Sheehan attended several anti-war events in Sacramento organized by the Pearcys.

In September, the Bring Them Home Now Tour was organized by Gold Star Families for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, and Veterans For Peace. Inspired by, and frequently featuring Cindy Sheehan as a speaker, it was a rolling anti-war protest against the Iraq War, beginning in Crawford, Texas, traveling three routes across the country (with rallies along the way) and culminating in a rally in Washington, DC in September 2005.

Sheehan returned to Texas to protest Bush taking a Thanksgiving vacation without bringing the soldiers home. In early December, Sheehan traveled to Chicago to attend the annual ''People's Weekly World'' banquet.

In the winter of 2005/2006 Sheehan met with Senator John McCain, and later called him a "warmonger". She later protested Hillary Clinton's stance on the war, stating that Clinton must either speak out against the war or risk losing her job, and urged Governor Janet Napolitano to withdraw the Arizona National Guard from Iraq at a rally in Phoenix. Sheehan said on October 24 during a media interview that she planned to speak at the White House and then tie herself to the fence. She and 28 others were arrested in a sit-in at the White House on October 26.

Sheehan went to London in early December 2005 and was interviewed by BBC Radio 4 and by ''The Guardian''. On December 10, Sheehan addressed the International Peace Conference, organized by the Stop the War Coalition. Later in the evening, she attended the London Premiere of Peace Mom, a play written by Dario Fo (Literature Nobel laureate) about her, in which the role of Sheehan was played by Frances de la Tour. On December 13, Sheehan traveled to Ireland, where she met Irish Foreign Affairs minister Dermot Ahern. She voiced her objection to U.S. aircraft refueling at Shannon Airport, stating, "Your Government, even though they didn't send troops to Iraq, are complicit in the crimes by allowing the planes to land and refuel".

2006

On January 31, Sheehan wore a T-shirt reading "2,245 Dead. How many more?" to Bush's State of the Union address and was removed and arrested by Capitol Police. Additionally, Beverly Young, the wife of Representative Bill Young (R., Fla.), was told to leave because she was wearing a T-shirt that read "Support the Troops: Defending Our Freedom." As a matter of policy, visitors to Congress are not allowed to wear shirts containing type of any kind. Sheehan described the event:

On March 7, Sheehan was arrested in New York "after blocking the door to the U.S. Mission to the U.N. offices" during a protest with Iraqi women against the war.

Sheehan took part in the United for Peace and Justice March in New York to protest the war on April 29, 2006.

In April 2006 City Lights published Sheehan's ''Dear President Bush'', in which she wrote about Martin Luther King, Jr., civil disobedience, US foreign policy, Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans, military recruitment, her son Casey’s death on his fifth day in Iraq, soldiers who resist, and her transformation into an advocate for peace. Howard Zinn wrote the introduction.

Sheehan has accused the United States of planning to attack Iran in an effort to halt that nation's development of nuclear weapons. In two articles on ''BuzzFlash'', she said the passage of the Iran Freedom and Support Act was merely a stepping stone to war and called on Congress to reject similar measures in the future.

On Mother's Day, Sheehan joined Susan Sarandon at a Code Pink organized protest in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. Sheehan told the crowd that Mother's Day without her son was "very emotional" for her.

On May 26, Sheehan spoke at a rally in Melbourne, Australia. The rally was held in front of the offices of the Victorian Liberal Party, and it was in support of the release of David Hicks.

Several organizations planned a hunger strike for July 4 in which Sheehan stated she would participate, but would not be fasting indefinitely as some others had pledged to do. "Some of us, like Dick Gregory and Diane Wilson, will be fasting until the troops come home from Iraq, and some, like me, will be fasting for a specified time. Her fast was a full liquid diet.

On July 5, Sheehan appeared on MSNBC's ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'' to discuss the war and her upcoming hunger strike. On the show, she called Bush "the biggest terrorist in the world" and "worse than Osama Bin Laden," and conceded that she would rather live under Venezuela's Hugo Chávez than Bush. Later that month, Sheehan purchased of land in Crawford, Texas, near Bush's private residence. In a written statement, Sheehan wrote that she "decided to buy property in Crawford to use until George's resignation or impeachment, which we all hope is soon for the sake of the world." She also stated that she "can't think of a better way to use Casey's insurance money than for peace", and that she is sure that her son would have approved. In an interview on ''The Stephanie Miller Show'', Sheehan said that once her need for the land is over, she intends to donate the land to Crawford for the purpose of converting it into The Casey Sheehan Memorial Peace Park.

In September, Sheehan released her memoir, entitled ''Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism''. The book recounts her experience of losing her son, along with fantasies of suicide and revenge against Bush, and her transformation into an anti-war activist. Also included in the book are criticisms of several other politicians, including: Senator John McCain, whom she accuses of lying to the media about his private statements to her; John Kerry, whom she says she regrets voting for; and Hillary Clinton, whom she calls a "powermonger." While she could not participate for health reasons, Sheehan allowed her supporters to set up Camp Casey at Camp Democracy in early September.

On December 10, Sheehan participated in a pro-impeachment forum at Fordham University alongside Carolyn Ho, mother of Ehren Watada, the first commissioned Army officer to refuse to go to Iraq.

2007

On January 6, 2007 she traveled to Cuba and called for the closure of the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. She also visited the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) where she declared: "I am impressed by the school, the quality of the students. I have never seen anything like it in the world; it doesn’t matter what part of the world we come from, or the fact that our governments don’t get along, we have the same hearts and they are filled with love."

In Springfield, Vermont, on March 4, 2007, Sheehan gave a speech at the Unitarian Universalist Church about impeaching President Bush and ending the war.

Cindy Sheehan planned on visiting Purdue University on April 12, 2007, to give a speech on President Bush and the war in Iraq. This visit caused controversy locally and Purdue University enacted security measures not normally used around a guest speaker, such as banning signs or banners from the speech location. Some students let their opinion be known as Sheehan had a hard time speaking over the chorus of boos from those in attendance. At one point in her speech, she referred to the students heckling her as "warmongers."

Cindy Sheehan was invited by the May 4th Task Force as part of a yearly event remembering the Kent State Shootings. After ringing the Kent State bell 32 times to honor the recent Virginia Tech massacre, Cindy Sheehan spoke to a crowded gathering of students and activists from all over the region.

On July 2, Sheehan started a podcast together with Mary Morello called ''The Mary Morello and Cindy Sheehan Show''.

On May 26 and May 28, 2007, Sheehan officially left the Democratic Party after the Democratic-controlled Congress passed a bill authorizing the continued funding of the war in Iraq, and submitted her resignation as the "face" of the American anti-war movement via two messages posted to Daily Kos, stating that she wanted to go home and be a mother to her surviving children, and concluding her letters with the words

On July 3, 2007, in response to President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence, Cindy Sheehan returned to activism. She asserted that she would take a new approach to the anti-war movement, but that Bush's recent action "dragged me kicking and screaming back in."

In 2008 Sheehan focused on her campaign. She ran on a platform of single-payer health care, media reform, overturning all free trade agreements, repealing the Patriot Act, renewable energy, nationalizing oil and electricity, ending the War on Drugs, legalizing cannabis, ensuring all talks in the Middle East are fair to all parties, ending torture, closing Guantanamo Bay detention camp, overseas commitment to cleaning up Superfund sites, ending deregulation, ending No Child Left Behind, and legalizing same-sex marriage. Sheehan lost the 2008 election to U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. In a seven-way race, Sheehan came in second with 46,118 votes (16.14%) to Pelosi's 71.56%.

2009

On June 8, 2009; Sheehan led a protest near former President Bush's home in the north Dallas neighborhood of Preston Hollow.

In August, 2009, Sheehan protested at Martha's Vineyard during President Barack Obama's stay there. According to ABC News: "Sheehan invoked Sen. Ted Kennedy's passing as part of her message, noting that he was firmly anti-war and how he said his proudest vote as a senator was his 2002 vote against the Iraq war."

On October 5 Sheehan was arrested with sixty others at the White House protesting President Obama's continuation of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She told CNN: "I think the mood of the country and the mood of our movement is getting a little bit more desperate, and (that) this will be the time to be able to translate our tireless activism and work for peace."

On December 10 Sheehan protested on the streets of Oslo, Norway, as President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.

2010

On March 20, Sheehan was again arrested in front of the White House. Officers of the United States Park Police arrested her and seven others after they defied orders to clear the sidewalk on Pennsylvania Avenue.

On July 12, Sheehan and four other activists were on trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia stemming from the arrests on March 20. The government decided not to try three others arrested that day, and had their cases dismissed. Sheehan and two others were acquitted of crossing a police line, while the other two were found guilty.

2011

Sheehan released a statement on May 2, 2011 indicating that she considers the death of Osama bin Laden to be a hoax, stating "If you believe the newest death of OBL, you’re stupid," referring to America as a "lying, murderous Empire" and telling Americans, whom she called "brainwashed," to "put [their] flags away."

Congressional election campaign

In July 2007, Sheehan had announced that she would run against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi based on her failure to attempt impeachment of Bush. Up until her run for U.S. Congress, Sheehan lived outside Pelosi's district, in Dixon, California; however, she moved to San Francisco's Mission District, after declaring her candidacy. Earlier, in 2006, she had spoken of ambitions to challenge Dianne Feinstein for her seat in the United States Senate.

Criticism

An editorial in Slate by Christopher Hitchens criticized Sheehan, calling her analysis of the 2003 Iraq War as taking "a short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive" and ridiculing her claim about speaking in the name of her son.

In a 2005 segment of political commentator Bill O'Reilly said Sheehan was never a protestor, but a "a political player, whose primary concern is embarrassing the president."

World Net Daily has published multiple op-eds critical of Cindy Sheehan.

In 2011, an article in The Village Voice criticized her belief that Osama bin Laden was not dead writing that, "she appears to have really lost it."

See also

American popular opinion on invasion of Iraq

Movement to impeach George W. Bush

Nadia McCaffrey, anti-war activist

Opposition to the Iraq War

Protests against the Iraq War

Views on the 2003 invasion of Iraq

References

External links

Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox Radio, blog and action page

Blog at SmirkingChimp.Com

Former blogs at Crawford Update, DailyKos and Huffington Post

Cindy Sheehan Sets Up "Camp Out Now" in Antiwar Protest - video report by ''Democracy Now!''

Cindy Sheehan On "Peace Heroes: Albert Einstein". 18 May 2010.

Dissent in the age of Obama - an article by Cindy Sheehan, 5 October 2010

Injustice in the age of Obama - an article by Cindy Sheehan, 16 October 2010

Category:American anti–Iraq War activists Category:American memoirists Category:American pacifists Category:American socialists Category:American vegans Category:Former Roman Catholics Category:Activists from California Category:California politicians Category:Mission District, San Francisco, California Category:People from Inglewood, California Category:People from Vacaville, California Category:1957 births Category:Living people

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