By: Toby Cohen
Source: Religious Intelligence, October 2, 2009
Following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s call to protect the people of Camp Ashraf, London priests gathered to give their supports to those protesting outside the US embassy.
The Rev Lindsay Meader, minister at St James’ Church in Piccadilly, said: “In order to implement the announcement of Archbishop of Canterbury, we are going to contact the Anglican Communion Observer at the UN Dr. Hellen Wangusa and the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion Canon Kenneth Kearon to ask Ban Ki-moon to intervene, to send monitoring teams to Camp Ashraf to ensure the protection of its residents and to save the lives of 36 detained without charge by the Iraqi police.”
The Rev Robert Hampson, of the Holy Trinity, South Woodford, said: “We want to see action from those who have a say internationally, namely the UN. We want a UN inspection group in Ashraf; we want the American government to take its responsibilities seriously for human life.”
The Iraqi guards of the camp containing 3,500 Iranian dissidents are accused of brutally attacking the inhabitants they were meant to protect. There are now protesters stationed outside US embassies around the world, with those in London in their tenth week of hunger strike.
Margaret Owen, a 75-year-old London human rights lawyer and director of Widows for Peace and Democracy, has now joined the hunger strikers who are facing irreversible organ failure, despite Dr Williams pleading with them not to add to the human suffering.
The Rev Joe Hawes, of All Saints in Fulham said: “People are crying out for help and the deafening silence from the responsible authorities is shocking, not least because the residents of Ashraf are on hunger strike.”
