“Stop the War Coalition (STWC) is organising protests, street theatre and media briefings along with Rose Gentle and others who lost family members due to Tony Blair’s rush to war,” a spokesman for Britain’s biggest peace group network said.
The spokesman told IRNA that STWC were on alert for when the exact date of Blair’s return is announced by the inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot between January 18 and February 7.
Chilcot announced last month that the former premier as well as former foreign secretary Jack Straw would be among a dozen officials and military leaders asked to appear in front of the five-member panel to provide “more detail” in a third series of hearings.
He also said that again there would be a ballot due to the expected high level of demand for seats in the 60-seat hearing room for when Blair gives evidence for the second time.
Hundreds of protesters assembled outside Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in central London when the former prime minister first gave evidence in January last year, calling for him to be prosecuted as a war criminal.
Blair avoided the demonstrations, including by bereaved families of the 179 British soldiers killed in Iraq, by arriving two hours early and entering the venue through a side-door.
His evidence was widely criticised for showing a lack of remorse and leaving significant questions unanswered in leading Britain into the 2003 war, after insisting he did not deceive the British public, that he was right to invade and that he would do the same again.
Gentle, whose 18-year old son Gordon was also killed in Iraq, questioned why Blair just did not say the truth, saying all she wanted to tell him was: “Why not put your hands up and say you made a mistake?'
“I don't think we have learned anything new, and when the inquiry ends there's not much we can do,” Gentle lamented after watching his first performance for six hours.
Ahead of his testimony last year, a YouGov poll in the Sunday Times found that 52% of people believe the former premier deliberately misled the country over the Iraq war and that 23% think he should be tried as a war criminal.
Blair was also hounded at the launch of his memoirs in September, when he was forced to cancel his only book signing event in central London as well as hosting a party celebration due to planned protests.
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