Group go out on the road to fly flag for peace
ROCHDALE and Littleborough Peace Group took to the street on Friday to protest against the parliamentary vote to join the US-led bombing campaign in Iraq.
They unfurled a large banner reading ‘Bombing is not the answer!’ and displayed peace flags at the junction of Manchester Road and Edinburgh Way in Sudden after MPs backed government plans to join the US-led air strikes against militant group ISIS.
Speaking on behalf of the group Philip Gilligan said: “The grim atrocities carried out by the so-called Islamic State have rightly shocked and repulsed the world, but heaping further atrocities onto the people of Iraq cannot be the answer.
“Air strikes will inevitably result in the deaths of civilians; innocent children, women and men who have played no part in the actions of ISIS.
“It was the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 that led to the chaos which has allowed the rise of the so-called Islamic State. What is needed now is urgent humanitarian assistance, political pressure and working with allies in the region to halt the spread of this murderous group: not another disastrous and ill-conceived bombing campaign which will make the situation worse.”
Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk and Rossendale MP Jake Berry, whose constituency includes Whitworth, were among the 542 MPs who voted in favour of the action.