Indian author Arundhati Roy on Wednesday called on the people to join the resistance against the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.

Booker Prize winner Roy, who will be presented with the Sydney Peace Prize in Sydney later in the day, however, said, "One is not urging them to join the Mehdi army but to become the resistance, to become part of what ought to be a non-violent resistance against a very violent occupation.

• The Arundhati Roy interview | The Iraq War Homepage

"We can't just assume that resistance means terrorism because that would be playing right into the hands of the occupation," she said.

Roy was selected for the Sydney Peace Prize for her commitment to the philosophy and principles of non-violence.

Roy, who had urged Australians to vote against Prime Minister John Howard, a key US ally in the Iraq campaign, in the recent elections, said, "The sense that that kind of brutality is good, or at the very least acceptable and in the interest of people is, I suppose, one of the biggest dilemmas the world faces today."