Stray Bullets - Protests In Asda, Waitrose And Jordon

Jordan’s ‘Lettuce Lady’ Detained By Police:
Amina Tariq [1], a member of PETA, was detained whilst staging a protest dressed in lettuce in the Jordanian capital of Amman. The Jordanian has said Tariq was detained for several hours because she did not obtain permission for the protest. PETA has staged similar pro-vegetarian protests in other countries with scantily-clad ‘lettuce ladies [2]’, but due to Jordan’s strict dress-code, Tariq was fully clothed beneath her lettuce leaves. Tariq said she was left confused by her detainment: “We contacted the Jordanian authorities a month ago and they told us we did not need permission because it is not an actual protest since there would be one person involved.”

Protest In Waitrose Aisle:
Activists have set up a tent in a Brighton Waitrose store to protest the treatment of farmers in Palestine [3]. 15 activists set up the tent in the fruit and vegetable aisle of Waitrose [4], in protest at 23 Palestinian homes demolished by the Israeli Army. Simon Levin, one of the activists, handed the store’s manager a letter, which called on the store to stop selling Israeli goods. Levin said, “We demanded that your company respects the basic human rights of these Palestinian farmers… by refusing to stock Israeli and Israeli settlement goods until such time as the occupation of Palestine is over and the Palestinians are accorded their full human and political rights by the Israeli administration as laid out by international custom and law.”

Wikileaks Releases Thousands Of USA Intelligence Reports:
The website Wikileaks has released over 90,000 military records [5], many of which detail the killings of Afghan civilians. The leak, one of the biggest in US history [6], was given advanced showings to the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel. The leak suggests that many civilian casualties caused by both the Taliban and Nato have remained unreported. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, said, “When we publish material, what we say is: the document as we describe it is true… we publish CIA reports all the time. They are legitimate reports, but they don’t mean the CIA is telling the truth."

Asda Stores Under Fire For Sweat Shops:
Campaign group Action Aid has launched a campaign of guerrilla protest tactics to highlight Asda’s use of sweatshop labour [7]. Activists placed messages into the pockets of Asda clothing, as well as collecting 2p from shoppers as they entered Asda stores, with the 2p reflecting how much more Asda would need to pay its workers to ensure their basic human rights. Anyone who finds a secret message in their Asda clothing can send the message to Action Aid to claim a campaign t-shirt and enter a prize draw for other ethical clothing [4]. The group has promised to continue with the campaign every month until Asda increases the wages of overseas workers. The Action Aid’s campaign statement says, “Asda’s record on wage is woefully poor. It’s been proved, on a number of occasions, that workers in it factories are being paid very low wages. Like many companies, it says it’s trying to change that but it efforts to do so are trailing behind many of its rivals including M&S, Primark and Tesco.”

Words: Richard Lemmer

Photo: Flickr user chardunk

Disclaimer: These news bites are written by freelance writer Richard Lemmer and are not necessarily reflective of Christian Aid and Ctrl.Alt.Shift values.