Barbara Grace Tucker

{{Short description|Australian peace activist}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

File:Barbara Tucker in May 2012 (cropped).jpg, March 2012]]

Barbara Grace Tucker is an Australian born peace activist.{{cite news|title=Parliament camp protester to take fight to Europe|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13213393|publisher=BBC UK|accessdate=5 January 2013|date=27 April 2011}} She is a native of the Melbourne{{cite web|title=The Aussie peace protester of London |url=http://www.australiantimes.co.uk/news/uk-australian-news/the-aussie-peace-protester-of-london.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130419143601/http://www.australiantimes.co.uk/news/uk-australian-news/the-aussie-peace-protester-of-london.htm |url-status=dead|archive-date=19 April 2013 |publisher=www.australiantimes.co.uk |accessdate=5 January 2013 }} suburb of Glen Waverley and travelled widely before settling in Britain in the early 1980s.

File:Brian and Babs (cropped).jpg (on crutches) with Barbara Grace Tucker at Christmas 2009]]

She joined the London Parliament Square Peace Campaign of Brian Haw in December 2005. This round-the-clock campaign had been initiated by Haw in June 2001 to protest the sanctions against Iraq which had devastated Iraqi society and had, according to UNICEF, killed some 500,000 children.{{cite web|title=Iraq surveys show 'humanitarian emergency'|url=http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm|publisher=UNICEF|accessdate=5 January 2013|archive-date=6 August 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806193122/http://www.unicef.org/newsline/99pr29.htm|url-status=dead}}

In the seven years or so since Tucker's arrival she has been arrested 47 times–usually on charges of "unauthorised demonstration".{{citation needed|date=March 2016}} In 2008 she served two weeks in prison for breach of police bail,{{cite web|title=Turning a blind eye to authoritarianism |url=http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/59333 |publisher=www.morningstaronline.co.uk |accessdate=5 January 2013 |url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305013703/http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/59333 |archivedate=March 5, 2016 }} and in 2011 she served a nine-week prison sentence in Holloway Prison.{{cite news|title=Barbara Grace Tucker|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-clear-brian-haws-peace-camp-6128760.html?origin=internalSearch|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925163659/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-clear-brian-haws-peace-camp-6128760.html?origin=internalSearch|url-status=dead|archive-date=September 25, 2015|work=The Independent|accessdate=9 January 2013|location=London|date=1 September 2011}}

She has been denied a tent, blankets, or sleeping bag since January 2012 and has instead slept in a chair until that, too, was taken away. Tucker has been treated for exposure and has spent some time on an intravenous drip. In January 2013 Tucker started a hunger strike after protesting in the square for a total of eight years.{{cite web|title=Parliament Square peace protester stages hunger strike| date=4 January 2013 |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/parliament-square-peace-protester-stages-hunger-strike-8438307.html?origin=internalSearch|publisher=www.standard.co.uk|accessdate=5 January 2013}} She and her supporters vowed to continue their demonstration, and did so until later in 2013.{{cite web |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/peace-at-last-final-antiwar-protesters-leave-parliament-square-after-12-years-8608893.html |title=Peace at last! Final anti-war protesters leave Parliament Square after 12 years |last= |first= |date=May 9, 2013 |website=Evening Standard |publisher= |access-date=July 6, 2021 |quote=}}