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Protest: Father Martin Newell |
Prison cell was no holiday camp, says defiant priest
Father speaks of jail term after Iraq anti-war protest in Whitehall
A ROMAN Catholic priest has spoken for the first time about being jailed for daubing anti-Iraq war slogans on the walls of the Ministry of Defence.
Father Martin Newell, a Passionist priest based at Dorothy Day House in De Beauvoir Town, served his sentence in Brixton Prison in May.
His graffiti was part of a protest by the “international radical” Catholic Worker resistance movement on the lawns outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall in 2004.
As part of the Feast of the Holy Innocents festival, the religious movement converted the Whitehall lawn into a cemetery for the war dead and even dug ‘graves’ in the manicured grass.
Father Martin, 40, later wrote in red paint on the wall: “Remember the Innocent, Stop the War, Remember Iraqi War Dead’.
He said: “We dug graves and had a child-size coffin and wrote on the walls of the MoD, the headquarters of the war, in red paint.
“The police turned up pretty quickly after four graves had been dug in the lawn. One tried to stop us by grabbing our arms but we still had an arm each free to paint.
“There was a bit of a struggle but we kept very calm.”
Father Martin and six other protesters were taken to Charing Cross police station. He was charged with criminal damage.
The priest appeared in court a number of times over the next two-and-a-half years. Each time he refused to pay hundreds of pounds in damages and costs as a further “act of non co-operation” against the war.
In May, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Father Martin was sentenced to two weeks in prison, of which he served two-and-a-half days.
He said: “It was certainly no holiday camp. I had to share a cell with a couple of tough guys.
“It was interesting because for most people in prisons, the only time they meet a clergyman is the prison chaplain.
“I spent my time trying to avoid the television, reading, praying and talking to my cellmates.
Father Martin was ordained at the age of 20 at St Margaret’s in Canning Town as spends most of his time working with refugees from war zones.
His time in Brixton is the second time he has been sent to prison, after serving six-and-a-half months in Belmarsh and Bedford prisons for attempting to dismantle a nuclear trailer as part of an anti-Trident demonstration. |
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