Hello friends,

many greetings to you from the European parliament in Brussels.
I am very sorry that I've been so silent in the past week or two. It hasn't been because we haven't been doing anything. On the contrary! We've been so active that I didn't find the time to write.

Once again I would like to thank you for all your support and hard work. I think we have managed to get a lot of things done in the last couple of weeks together and that the fight against the "Star wars" radar has intensified a lot during this time. Thanks a lot! Now let's keep this pressure growing in the next couple of weeks, the most important decisions are still ahead of us!
After we suspended the hunger strike (after 21 days) on June 2, there were others who "took over" from us and started the "chain hunger strike", where each person goes on a symbolic hunger strike for 24 hours. These people are all known people in the Czech Republic: actors, dissidents of the former regime, athletes, politicians including MPs, intellectuals, singers and many others. The chain hunger strike is going on for the second week now and we already have the list of participants prepared for the third week. It will be again full of very interesting people, most of which have not spoken out on this issue before but are now beginning to raise their voice! So that's great. Most of them also do a video statement for us on camera which we put immediately on our website for everybody to see. These videos are in Czech now, but we could also add others in English, if you'll upload them to YouTube and send us the link.
In the meantime we've been preparing for the world-wide one day hunger strike on June 22. Those of you, who haven't done so already, please register for it at http://www.nenasili.cz/en/1494_worldwide-hunger-strike-22th-june-2008. It's going great so far, we have people from many cities around the world who already signed up to participate and others are joining the list every day.

We have also started working on the EU level. Like I said, I am in Brussels now in the European Parliament where during the past three days we've met with a number of MEPs including the vice-chairman of the EU Parliament Luisa Morgantini. Things are under way for a meeting of MEPs on July 9 in Strassbourg where I will also participate. It looks like there will be tens of MEPs participating! On this occasion we will deliver them the printed version of our online petition against the radar, which currently has more than 110 thousand signatures. We would like this number to reach 200 000 signatures by that time, so please help us spread the word and let people sign the petition at www.nonviolence.cz.

We have also invited Luisa Morgantini to come to Prague for an international conference on July 17 and she has agreed! So we'll have the vice-chairman of the EU parliament in Prague talking against the "Star wars" plan! That's great success! It would be great if we could also have somebody from the US congress to come and participate, so our US friends can try to work in this direction.

But don't let this success fool you, our opponents are going ahead with their plan. They have just announced last night that Condoleezza Rice will come to Prague to sign the treaty between the Czech and US governments on July 10. So we should do all we can before that day!
We have decided to take the June 22 hunger strike as a starting point for the next two to three weeks of intense campaigning against the Star wars project. More plans will be made in just two days when we'll meet online to coordinate everything. One of the ideas we had was that starting June 22 each country would take one day and hold activities against the Star wars project in their country. One country per day. It would be a similar chain, like we are now doing with the chain hunger strike. So far this is just an idea, I'll keep you informed about what we decide on Sunday.

Also, we gave ourselves a Monday deadline to prepare all the necessary documents about the June 22 hunger strike, the chain hunger strike and possibly also a few words about the July 9 meeting of MEPs and July 10 signing of the treaty. We'll send everything to you once it's ready in English, hopefully at the beginning of next week. For now you can use the information that you'll find on the www.nenasili.cz/en website.
These are the updates from us, I have to end now, have a plane to catch back to Prague :-)

These are the updates from us, I have to end now, have a plane to catch back to Prague :-)
Feel free to circulate this email around.
I'm looking forward to continuing the struggle with all of you!

Big hugs
Jan

PS PS: I want to tell you, that I'm really honored to have a chance of working together with all of you!