Maya Evans (centre back) at a refugee camp in Kabul, December 2011

Local peace activist jailed for Afghan war protest

On Wednesday 29 February at Hastings Magistrates Court, a local peace activist who recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan was sentenced to 13 days in prison for her role in an anti-war protest back in 2009. Maya Evans (32) from St Leonards was sentenced to two weeks’ imprisonment at a hearing last December, and this sentence was activated when she returned to court this week.

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. NATO bombing has continued since then. Indeed, NATO recently confirmed the death of eight civilians in an air strike earlier this month.

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.

In 2005 she was convicted for reading the names of the Iraq war dead opposite the Cenotaph without police permission – she was the first person to be arrested under the new Serious Organised Crimes and Police Act (SOCPA). In 2010 she won “a partial victory” in the High Court, regarding British complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees.

Ms Evans said: “In Afghanistan I met a young man whose sister had been left widowed, with an infant son, by a NATO air strike 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 on its hands.”

You can read about Maya’s recent experiences in Afghanistan on her From Hastings to Kabul blog.

She was held at Bronzefield Prison in Middlesex until Tuesday 6 March – spending only 6 days of the original 13 day sentence in there. There was a presence outside the prison to welcome Ms Evans on her release.

Links:
http://www.demotix.com/news/76194/wedding-die-protest-london-afghanistan-war-base
“NATO Confirms Recent Airstrike Killed 8 Afghan Civilians”, Voice of America, 15 February 2012
“MPs condemn arrest of woman who spoke out”, Daily Mail, 8 December 2005
“Partial victory in challenge to UK Taliban transfers”, BBC, 25 June 2010
Justice not Vengeance website

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