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Because of the dense crowd behind us we were not able to back up to take wide-angle pictures

With the cheering encouragement of 300 onlookers, fifty-seven men and women gathered at Vancouver's downtown Sunset Beach on Sunday February 23 to lie naked against Bush's war on Iraq. The participants, who ranged in age from 6 months to 65 years, chanted "More ass, less gas" and "Show your peace!" Their bodies formed a peace sign, and were circled by bicycles and trikes to highlight the importance of reducing oil consumption. As a chill breeze gave way to the warmth of the afternoon sun, protesters stretched out and sunbathed for thirty minutes.

Today's demonstration follows a series of similar naked-for-peace demonstrations around the world, in which participants spelled words or formed peace signs with their nude bodies. A group calling itself Baring Witness inspired the movement with its first such protest on November 12 2002, when 45 women spelled "PEACE" on an empty beach in Marin County, California. More recently a crowd of 700 women formed a peace symbol on a hill in New South Wales. Today's event appears to be the first one held in such a public location, which could account for the large crowd of enthusiastic spectators.

Two police officers on horses watched the event from a nearby hill. They were later asked what the policy was on such public nudity, and one officer answered that the laws on nudity were becoming more flexible in Canada. After all, the officer pointed out, it's also illegal to block traffic, but no-one objected to the crowd of 25,000 people that packed Vancouver's downtown streets the previous weekend.

The effectiveness of this form of protest, which at first seems so silly, is proven by the fact that it gets on the news! Many TV cameras were seen, and the story was covered in at least three local news broadcasts that evening. More on this now world-wide movement can be found on the Naked for Peace website.