For immediate release
Contact:
Joanne Landy, Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy
jlandy@igc.org
Tel (212)666-4001;
cell (646)207-5203
Dennis Redmond, Humanist Movement
dennisredmond@gmail.com Tel (917)658-6261
NEW YORK, May 26, 2008 -- Czech humanists Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar have begun the fourteenth day of their hunger strike to protest the planned US missile defense base deployment in the Czech Republic.
The Humanist Movement and The Campaign for Peace and Democracy are organizing a vigil on May 26th at 5 PM in Union Square South (by the Gandhi statue) in support of the Czech hunger strikers.
"We have tried almost everything, but our government has failed to listen to us. They continue to ignore the fact that more than two thirds of Czechs oppose this plan," said Tamas, in reference to the March 2008 polls showing 67% of Czech citizens disagree with the planned US deployment of a missile defense radar site 90 kilometers outside of Prague. The strikers are requesting that the installation of the base be put to a national referendum.
Bednar's health conditions are worsening day after day, but he has chosen to continue the hunger strike, despite urgings from the medical team, as well as his friends and family. "I have seen no sign that the Czech government is willing to open the dialogue on this issue and the European Parliament is still silent," he stated on Sunday.
Solidarity hunger strikes have also begun in Trieste (since May 14), Rome (May 19), Madrid (May 22), Maine (May 24), Australia and Bologna (May 25). In addition, messages of support continue to pour in daily from hundreds of international organizations and personalities, including Noam Chomsky, Dario Fo, Dennis Kucinich, Luisa Morgantini (Vice President of the European Parliament), and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges.
In the United States, activists are using hunger strikes, public protests, an online petition, and direct appeals to members of Congress to highlight home-grown opposition to the missile defense system. "At a time of global crisis, in which millions of human beings lack the means to feed themselves, it is irresponsible to spend hundreds of billions of dollars for war and the production of new weapons," said Chris Wells, North American spokesperson for New Humanism. "In such a difficult time in world history, ordinary people do not support any policy that pushes the planet towards catastrophe."
THE CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY (CPD) advocates a new, progressive and non-militaristic U.S. foreign policy -- one that encourages democratization, justice and social change. Founded in 1982, the Campaign opposed the Cold War by promoting "detente from below." It engaged Western peace activists in the defense of the rights of democratic dissidents in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and enlisted East-bloc human rights activists against anti-democratic U.S. policies in countries like Nicaragua and Chile.
Campaign for Peace and Democracy, 2790 Broadway, #12, NY, NY 10025. Tel (212)666-4001, Cell (646)207-5203, Fax (212) 866-5847. Email: cpd@igc.org Web: www.cpdweb.org
THE HUMANIST MOVEMENT is an international volunteer organization that promotes nonviolence and social justice and whose goal is a society based on the human being as a central value. It takes its inspiration from the current of thought referred to as New or Universal Humanism and its members are active at all levels in the social, cultural, and political fields.
Web: www.newhumanist.us