Contact: Tom Walsh: 773-784-8065
For Immediate Release

(Chicago, IL. Tuesday, August 12th….) On July 29th 2003 Voices in the Wilderness (ViTW) was presented with a summons by the United States Department of Justice, charging ViTW $20,000 in penalties, plus interest and late fees, for bringing medicine and school supplies to Iraq. ViTW has been given 20 days to respond or “judgment by default will be taken against you for the relief demanded in the complaint”.

Since 1996 ViTW has been a campaign to end the US/UN sanctions on Iraq, calling their effect on the Iraqi people inhumane, immoral and unjust. ViTW does not intend to pay these fines. We do not believe that we have acted illegally by bringing desperately needed relief to the Iraqi people. Rather, our response to this summons will be an extension of our effort to draw attention to the devastating condition of life in Iraq and to the direct role that US/UN imposed sanctions and US bombing campaigns have had on ordinary Iraqi families and the civilian infrastructure.

We ask that all who have opposed the devastating affects of years of economic sanctions and bombings come forward and raise their voices to demand that the Department of Justice drop all charges and penalties brought against ViTW. We hope to match the $20,000 in new donations and once again carry relief aid to Iraq for the Iraqi people in protest of the continuing US sanctions on Iraq.

Included in the group of individuals traveling to Iraq with ViTW in the coming weeks are Kathy Kelly (Chicago, IL), Cathy Breen (New York, NY), Ed Kinane (Syracuse, NY), and Cynthia Banas (Vernon, NY), all of whom were in Iraq during the “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign. These individuals are available for interviews along with ViTW attorney and member Bill Quigley (New Orleans, LA), and ViTW member Bert Sacks (Seattle, WA), who also received fines from the Office of Foreign Assets Control in December 2002.

To schedule interviews, please call Tom Walsh at 773.784.8065.