I feel honoured to receive this prize today and to be here with you. Thank you for this privilege. I am full of admiration for the brave and compassionate life and work of Hrant Dink and feel deep sadness that his life was cut short by such a horrific murder. His work for a more inclusive and democratic Turkey is truly inspirational. For thousands of years human societies have been controlled by small, rich elites who have concentrated power into their own hands and then abused it, using force to gain control over other people's lands and resources. This exploitative, competitive, violent process has led to the murder, repression and dispossession of many millions of people, as well as destruction of the natural environment and other species.

Today, global corporations and an unbridled military-industrial complex put profits before people and the environment, and contribute massively to greenhouse gas emissions. Climate chaos is impacting on us all, and the poorest peoples suffer most.

Millions of ordinary people continue to struggle against the wrongs that are being committed. We affirm by our actions and words that they are not done in our names.

I am ashamed to admit that my home country, the UK, has an appalling record of human rights abuses going back centuries. Many millions of people have been killed at the hands of the British State. The killing continues to this day, despite the propaganda that maintains that the British government supports democracy, freedom and human rights.

Of course there are many wonderful British civil society groups that try their best to do just this. It is not British people in general who are to blame. It is the British government and its institutions, replicated in many other parts of the world, that act in ways totally inconsistent with these fine ideals.

Britain systematically undermines and violates international law. It supports and trades weapons with some of the most repressive regimes in the world. It aids and abets human rights abuses wherever it wishes to access geo-strategic positions, resources or assets. It encourages militarisation creating fear and making us all more insecure. Instead of dealing with the root causes of conflict it creates more conflict. Currently it supplies arms to Israel and refuses to condemn Israeli war crimes and breaches of humanitarian law in the occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza.

Moreover, Britain, with its illegal 100 kiloton nuclear warheads, engagement in foreign 'interventions' and in its support of the US's interminable so called 'war on terrorism' is engaged in 'state terrorism'.

I value many good things about my country but feel it is important for everyone to be able to criticise their own countries, from inside and outside, in order for them to change for the better.

Along with many others, I have tried to act to put a stop to wrongs. I have concentrated mostly upon the ills of militarisation and have used international humanitarian law as a tool for peaceful conflict resolution. I am committed to nonviolent action as I believe that violence only begets more violence and that we have to attempt to live according to our visions.

In 1995 I joined women campaigning to prevent the British Government's sales of weapons to Suharto, the repressive dictator of Indonesia, who had killed a million of his own people. Although we knew it was unlikely that Britain would stop the arms deal for 24 military aircraft, worth £400 million, we were determined to do everything we could to oppose it. When our letters and demonstrations had no effect, three of us hammered on one of the British Aerospace Hawk jet planes that were to be exported to Indonesia to engage in further genocidal attacks in East Timor, where a third of the population had already been killed. The Hawk jet was 'disarmed' - £1.5 million worth of damage to the body of the plane and the controls meant it could not be exported.

I then completed the 2nd stage of our joint action by going to court to start proceedings against the Secretary of State for Trade & Industry for conspiring to aid and abet acts of genocide, and to ask for an injunction to prevent the delivery of the rest of the Hawks. After several appearances urging the public and Parliamentarians to join our disarmament actions, the police finally caught up with me and I joined the other 3 in a high security prison for 6 months. If found guilty we faced 10 years in prison.

Despite the judge at our trial saying we were dangerous women who should be locked up for a very long time, the jury of 12 ordinary men and women acquitted us, agreeing that our actions were justified in order to prevent war crimes and human rights abuses.

We have not stopped the powerful and corrupt arms trade yet, but more people are protesting about it.

It is significant that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – China, France, Russia, UK and US - are some of the largest arms dealers in the world. They sell weapons, provide military training and intelligence to repressive regimes, and form military alliances with them. They all possess nuclear weapons. These are the major powers that are meant to be responsible for maintaining peace and security.

Which is why many people are campaigning for a reform of the UN Security Council, for nuclear disarmament and for an end to the expansionist nuclear alliance called NATO.

Nuclear weapons have been a focus for me as they undermine the integrity and morality of all nations that deploy them. I therefore founded Trident Ploughshares, a campaign which is based on international law and is an open challenge to the legitimacy of the UK's nuclear forces. Thousands of us have taken action, been arrested, and gone to court in order to protest about the UK's preparations to commit nuclear war crimes.

In 1999, I and 2 other women from Trident Ploughshares, took a boat over to a floating test laboratory on Loch Goil in Scotland. It was an essential part of the UK's nuclear weapons system. Breaking into the laboratory we managed to disable it by completely emptying it - throwing equipment overboard and cutting electric cables.

We spent five months in prison and then won a landmark case. Both judge and jury agreed with our legal arguments that the UK's nuclear weapons could never be used in conformity with international law. We were thus in our rights to take nonviolent steps to prevent preparations for mass murder.

Our acquittal caused a political furore. The Government could not appeal, so it took various of the legal points raised in the trial to the High Court. They dug up an ancient precedent that says that the legality of the armed forces cannot be questioned in the courts. Of course, this is a nonsense. Any democracy worth its name must be able to take legal action against any arm of the State if it is acting illegally. The debate continues and so do our actions. It is a long slow path towards genuine respect for international humanitarian law.

Trident Ploughshares and various other campaigns I am involved with continue to do all we can to de-legitimise the UK's nuclear weapons through the use of the law and by nonviolent, accountable direct action. We continue to blockade and break into nuclear bases in order to disprupt the military's business as usual. Our frequent nonviolent but effective incursions into high security nuclear bases led to the removal of all of the US nuclear weapons stored in the UK because they could not guarantee their safety.

We also use colourful and creative protest to get the public's attention. For instance, over the last 2 years thousands of us have been knitting 1 metre lengths of a pink peace scarf that were finally joined in a 7 mile stretch to link the 2 nuclear bomb making factories at Aldermaston and Burghfield. The peace scarf will be used for protests a few more times before being made up into blankets for refugees.

Campaigning at home is very important but so is international solidarity. Many people in the UK feel direct responsibility for Britain's historic role in Palestine and its betrayal of the Palestinians. I joined others involved in direct action in support of Palestinian human rights taking part in the beginning of the International Solidarity Movement. I was also arrested many times in peaceful demonstrations after founding the International Womens' Peace Service based in a rural village in the West Bank. I am now banned from entering Israel but the project continues to give support to beleaguered Palestinians.

The recent attacks on Gaza have prompted a wave of protests because ordinary citizens cannot bear our government's collusion with Israeli war crimes. Public awareness has increased dramatically over the years and more are now engaged in non-violent actions, including, for example, occupying the offices of companies such as Elbit and G4S, that profit directly from Israel's military regime and repression of Palestinians.

There are so many wonderful examples of how people are rising up against human rights abuses and confronting their governments and corporations. People all around the world are finally identifying as global citizens and casting off the prejudices of narrow short-sighted nationalistic self-interest. If we continue to reach out to each other then maybe we will be able to restore the natural world and create compassionate, loving societies.

I still live in hope.