Stop the War Coalition
The Stop the War Coalition is a UK campaign, set up following the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks in the USA. It opposed the American-led action against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and then later the invasion of Iraq.It has organsised many marches and protest events since it's creation, the largest being against the imminent invasion of Iraq on 15th February 2003. This was the largest demonstration ever seen in Britain with between 750,000 and 1,500,000 people. Speakers included Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn, and Charles Kennedy.
After the war began it held another demonstration on the 22nd March, while the turnout for this march was considerably less - at only half a million people turning up - it was noted that this was the largest anti-war demonstation held during wartime and this was with but a week's notice.
Its latest action was during November 2003 climaxing in a march on the 20th protesting against the agressive foreign policy of George W. Bush and the continued detention of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay which protesters claim is an illegal infrigement of human rights and the Geneva conventions. 100,000 people turned up to march past parliament and a papier maché statue of George Bush was toppled in an action reminisent of the much televised pulling down of a the statue of Saddam Hussein in Bagdad by american soliders.
Almost all the major British trade unions are affiliated to the Coalition as well as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
