In many publications around the world you will find reports that Human Shield volunteers have been deployed by Iraqi officials "to military sites instead of the schools and hospitals they had wanted to protect."
Take these reports as a prime example of this wonderful information system we call the Corporate Media: a system of journalists who don't have the time or the inclination to check facts, who are pressured into writing sensationalist stories and who just want to get their pay packet at the end of the week.
The above quote, which can be found in a number of publications, is simply an outright lie and if you are interested in the truth you should look to other publications for your news.
Human Shield volunteers have not being deployed to military sites. All the sites we have deployed to are chosen by us and informally approved by UN staff as critical to humanitarian concerns. It was always our intention to deploy to water plants, power plants, food silos, oil refineries, etc, as was reported in the leadup to our arrival in Baghdad. These sites are of critical concern to the well being of Iraqi civilians, especially children and the poor.
Under the Geneva Convention, to which the US, Britain and Australia are party, it is a war crime to harm or destroy facilities that provide essential services to civilians.
All the sites we are stationed at were targeted by the US in the 1991 Gulf War. If they are hit once again it will be the economic and environmental destruction, spreading of disease and lack of water that will so shamefully hit the children and poor yet again.
To set the record straight we were unable to stay in hospitals for the obvious reason that we would be too much of a burden on staff and a health risk to patients. We are, however, free to visit hospitals during the day. Shielding schools is a pointless exercise because in the event of a bombing campaign they will be closed down anyway.
