• the European Convention on Human Rights (protocol II effective Nov 1st 1998) Articles 9, 10 & 11
• the Bill of Rights before parliament (due to be enacted 1999) is due to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights
• the ruling re 5 protestors who recently took their cases to the European Court of Human Rights (23rd Sept 98), 3 of whom were successful

The appeal, which will be heard on Feb 4th/5th 1999, will be a "test case" on the new Human Rights position and will be of great significance to protestors all over Europe.

Anne Lee made the pledge after North Yorkshire County Council won an injunction at the High Court on Monday preventing her and two others from spending nights at the peace camp outside the base.

Ms Lee, Helen John and Jenny Gaiawyn were all banned from being at the camp at a lay-by on the A59 between 11pm and 7am.

Protesters have lived on various sites outside RAF Menwith Hill for about 14 years, claiming that illegal activities are happening on the base.

And they say the injunction will not prevent the protest, or the peace camp from continuing.

Ms Lee, a retired physics teacher in her late 60s, has vowed that the High Court ruling will not prevent the core group of around 10 female protesters from continuing their campaign - and said that she herself would risk imprisonment if necessary.

She said: "I'm prepared to go to prison for my beliefs. This happened at Greenham Common when the High Court injuncted women and ordered them not to go there for life and they went straight back from the court on to the common and nothing was done about it.

"The fight goes on. My message is 'never compromise with your prnciples'. We are going to win like we won at Greenham Common and we will win here. The hi-tech military boys haven't got a strategy for dealing with us."

The base was opened in the late 1950s and is now the National Security Agency's largest listening post in the world, sprawling across 560 acres.

Ms Lee, who gave up her home in Otley so she could live at the camp - a collection of caravans - now has 28 days to clear her property from the site as the injunction takes effect on July 22. The same conditions were applied to the other two women.

The council sought the injunction after complaints from local parish councils.

The protesters had argued that the site was the only place suitable to mount an effective protest while involving the least interference to the right of passage.

Maria Dixon, environment solicitor at North Yorkshire Council, said she was surprised the campaigners were prepared to go to prison.

"It is hoped that they will just move off the land like the judge said they should. He wasn't interfering with their rights of protest.

"He was merely stating that they ought not to occupy that area of public highway for the length of time they have been there."

High Court judge Mr Justice Hooper agreed with the council when he ruled that, whatever the objects of the camp, the obstruction caused is unreasonable.

• Yorkshire CND's Menwith Hill website ,
• The Adventures of Flossie Mintballs ,
• Women Protesting at the Gates of the Military .
• The Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space .