Lewis, Wendy

Lewis, Wendy

Wendy Lewis

1 June 2019News

300 in hunger strike over Turkish state’s treatment of Kurdish leader

Support for Imam Şiş, the Kurdish activist living in Newport, has grown as his hunger strike in solidarity with jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan reaches the limits of human endurance.

Alongside 300 of his compatriots, Imam is on an indefinite hunger strike to protest the Turkish state’s treatment of Öcalan, who has been held mostly in solitary confinement by the Turkish government since 1999 and denied access to lawyers and family.

Imam began his hunger strike on 19…

1 April 2016News

Welsh campaigners target Cardiff Arms Fair

Thousands of sci-fi fans queuing around the block at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, to get into the Film and Comic Convention on 5 March met with a musical protest against the arms trade. The prestigious venue was due to host an arms fair, including exhibitions from BAE Systems, the company that provides logistical support to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, sells arms to Turkey’s military to bomb the Kurdish people, and profits from death around the world.

Côr Cochion sang…

1 October 2015News

Welsh campaigners mark nuclear anniversary

Byth eto! Photo: Wendy Lewis

In South Wales, the 70th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was marked with two vigils. A large crowd including members of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and CND Cymru gathered by Tredegar Park lake in Newport Gwent. They heard Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West, a message of solidarity from Hiroshima, readings, and songs from Frankie Armstrong and Côr Cochion.

Cardiff’s annual remembrance at Roath…

1 June 2015Comment

Welsh radical remembered


Marking the 30th anniversary of Côr Cochion Caerdydd
(Cardiff Reds Choir) in 2013.

Ray Davies, the indefatigable peace activist, socialist, local representative of his people in Bedwas, Trethomas and Machen, and lover of male voice choirs, died age 85 on 7 May, election day. He would have lamented the result.

Ray bore his pancreatic cancer with the same courage he had when he faced the dangers underground as a boy miner, the police on picket lines during the Miners’…

25 November 2014News

Garden handed over to Community Trust

For nearly 20 years (1981-2000), the women of Greenham campaigned relentlessly against land-based Cruise missiles. They put their lives at risk for peace and Helen Thomas, a young Welsh peace activist from Newcastle Emlyn, was killed at Greenham Common in an accident on 5 August 1989.

When the base closed, the women planned a garden on the site of the nuclear nightmare. To honour Greenham’s strong Welsh connections, they decided to use pPennant sandstone from Wales for the…

1 February 2009News

On 10 January 100,000 people from all over Britain joined a march in London to protest at the Israeli embassy against the continuing relentless attacks on Gaza’s civilian population.

Ray Davies, 79-year-old vice-chair of CND Cymru, sustained head injuries, concussion and cuts when he was trapped with hundreds of others against the embassy gates by the Metropolitan Police.

The march had gone peacefully until it reached the embassy. Many shoes were thrown over the fence in a…