Maya Evans

rdf:langString Maya Evans

rdf:langString Maya Evans

rdf:langString Maya Evans

rdf:langString Hackney, London

rdf:langString Peter Duffy Award 2007

rdf:langString Labour

rdf:langString Maya (Anne) Evans is a councillor on Hastings Borough Council representing Hollington ward in East Sussex. Since being first elected in 2018, Maya has been Armed Forces champion of Hastings (responsible for helping homeless veterans), led a working group to reduce single-use plastics, and appointed cabinet member for climate change, natural environment and leisure. During the pandemic she held a senior position within the council; this ensured Hollington was always prioritised and received essential services. Maya is currently cabinet member for Environment and was described as the ‘climate change champion’ in 2019 Maya is also a peace campaigner who was arrested in October 2005 opposite the Cenotaph war memorial in London, for refusing to stop reading aloud the names of British soldiers who had been killed in Iraq following the 2003 Iraq war. Evans, an anti-war activist from Hastings, became the first person in the UK to be convicted under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 for taking part in an unauthorised demonstration within 1 km of Parliament Square. She received a conditional discharge and a fine. In December 2006 Evans lost an appeal against their convictions. Evans is one of the main campaigners in the group 'Voices for Creative Non-Violence UK' focusing on the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. Evans has been on speaking tours in the UK in 2006, 2007 and 2012, her letters appear regularly in The Guardian and The Independent and until 2011 had a regular column in the monthly Peace News. On 10 December 2007, Human Rights Day, Evans was awarded the Peter Duffy Award by the pressure group Liberty "for her campaigning work and commitment to the cause of liberty" and "courage in standing up for our fundamental rights to peaceful protest and freedom of speech". She is a member of the International Organization for a Participatory Society.