Peace activist
to speak at event at MCC
By BRETT ROWLAND - browland@nwherald.com
CRYSTAL LAKE – Kathy Kelly, peace activist and the coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, is scheduled to speak at an upcoming event sponsored by a student peace group at McHenry County College.
Kelly will speak at the “Witness to War: Injustice from Palestine to Pakistan” event at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the college conference center, 8900 Route 14, Crystal Lake.
The MCC Student Peace Action Network, Pax Christi and the McHenry County Peace Coalition are sponsoring the event. Admission is free.
Kelly, who has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, led 26 delegations to Iraq delivering medicines and humanitarian aid in defiance of economic sanctions between 1996 and 2003, according to a news release from the groups. She remained in Iraq during Operation Shock and Awe in 2003. Kelly lived near the border between Egypt and Gaza and last year witnessed an Israeli attack on Gaza.
Kelly said she planned to speak about her experiences in the peace movement and encourage people to talk to their elected officials about the United States’ involvement in wars overseas and funding for military operations in other countries. She also will talk about nonviolent dissent.
In the spring, Kelly led a fact-finding mission to Pakistan to investigate a military offensive in which 2 million civilians were displaced.
Kelly has been jailed for her work in the peace movement, including serving a year in a maximum security prison for planting corn on nuclear missile sites and three months in Pekin Prison for protesting training of Central American soldiers at the School of the Americas.
For information about the event, call Libby Pappalardo at 815-455-3683.
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If you go
Program: “Witness to War: Injustice from Palestine to Pakistan”
Speaker: Kathy Kelly, peace activist and the coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Where: McHenry County College Conference Center, 8900 Route 14, Crystal Lake.
