PEACE campaigners in York will be holding a silent city centre vigil tonight to mark their opposition to the bombing of Afghanistan.

In what will effectively be an echo of Saturday's protest march, they will gather around the fountain in Parliament Street from 5pm this evening.

There will also be a meeting on Wednesday evening at the Friends Meeting House in York and a coach is being laid on to attend a national CND demo in London next Saturday.

Bill Shaw of the Green party, one of the leaders of the protest, said he had been 'deeply saddened' when he learned the attacks had begun.

Inevitably, innocent people in Afghanistan would die, he said and the attacks would almost certainly spark further terrorist actions, with the people of Britain this time among the victims.

"I can see this thing spiralling out of control," he said. "And if it does, it won't be just the US that gets attacked. It will be anybody involved and we are now heavily involved."

Mr Shaw said he accepted that the Taliban was an 'evil regime' with no legitimacy and little support in its own country.

But he said violence was not the way to end violence. The Taliban should have been isolated, the freeze on their assets continued, and support given to the ordinary people of Afghanistan. "We don't believe that using military and violent acts to solve problems is the answer," he said.

Tonight's vigil would be a chance for all those opposed to the military action to make their opposition clear, he added.

"It is a silent vigil to mark what's happened and to say to people we don't approve, we think there are other ways," he said.

Updated: 07:45 Monday, October 08, 2001