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LOCAL News :: Civil & Human Rights

4:30PM TODAY: Protest Israeli Assault on Gaza Aid Convoy

Local human rights activists still have no word of status of Chicago activist Fatima Mohammadi, who was aboard ship that was attacked by Israeli commandos, killing ten and injuring dozens.
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PROTEST: Tuesday, June 1, 4:30 PM
Israeli consulate, 111 E. Wacker Dr., Chicago

Media contacts: Kevin Clark, Free Gaza Movement/Midwest: FGMinchicago (at) aol.com, cell 312-259-4380; Awad Hamdan, AMP Chicago chair, 773-951-2020

CHICAGO, June 1, 2010: Protests in support of the aid convoy attacked by Israeli commandos in international waters on Saturday have been occurring around the world, with Chicagoans scheduled to protest at 4:30 PM on Tuesday, June 1, in front of the Israeli consulate at 111 E. Wacker Dr. in Chicago. The action is being co-convened by the midwest chapter of the Free Gaza Movement and American Muslims for Palestine, with dozens of other groups joining in as endorsers. Protesters have vowed to step up their opposition to Israel's ongoing blockade of Gaza — a blockade that bans goods that range from cement and computers to adequate medical supplies and fuel, throwing roughly 60% of the Gaza population, half of whom are children, at risk of severe hunger and the entire region into economic collapse and despair.

Chicagoans continue to anxiously await word of the condition of a Chicago woman aboard the aid flotilla, Fatima Mohammadi, who was traveling with hundreds of fellow human rights supporters on the Mavi Marmara, a passenger ship traveling as part of a six-ship flotilla seeking to bring vital goods to Gaza, which has been besieged by an Israeli blockade since 2006. On Saturday, Israeli commandos attacked the vessel, killing at least ten and wounding dozens of others, in international waters as the convoy steamed towards Gaza.

Those ships remain impounded by Israeli authorities, who have also denied reporters and relief workers access to the hundreds of flotilla participants taken into custody. Flotilla participants, who ranged in age from 88 to a year old, included Christians, Muslims and Jews. Among their ranks were elected officials, former diplomats, aid workers and activists — including a Nobel laureate, a Holocaust survivor, many European legislators and an exiled former Archbishop of Jerusalem who currently lives in the Vatican.

Israel intensified its 2006 blockade after attacking the area in a weeks-long assault that ended in January 2009, killing more than 1,400 and leaving thousands more homeless and reducing huge swaths of housing to rubble. The blockade has created mass unemployment and extreme poverty, leaving four out of five Gazans — half of whom are children — dependent on humanitarian aid and unable to afford what basic foodstuffs ARE admitted to the region.

According to the Financial Times, banned goods range from chocolate and fresh meat to musical instruments, pens, notebooks, paper, blankets, toys, cars, fridges and computers, as well as building materials like cement, iron, gravel, marble and some wood. In addition, Israel only allows in just over half the weekly industrial fuel needs for Gaza’s only power plant, as well as less than half of the region’s necessary monthly gas supply. Israel's blockade and the intense poverty it has generated not only prevent a relief worker from giving a poor child a toy or a piece of chocolate to ease her impoverishment, it ensures that the region is denied access to adequate energy supplies to heat and light hospitals and schools, or to the computer tools to practice modern medicine or modern education.

The flotilla's cargo included prefabricated homes and playgrounds, cement and other home-building supplies, medical devices and medications, textiles and food. The flotilla's supplies were gathered by a coalition of international civil society and human rights organizations to be sent directly to the people of Gaza by sea, using international waters and the coastal waters immediately off of Gaza for passage.

Endorsing organizations of Tuesday's protest include Albany Park-North Park-Mayfair Neighbors for Peace and Justice,ANSWER-Chicago, Chicagoans Against Apartheid in Palestine (CAAP),Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism (CCAWR) , CodePink-Chicago, Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine [CJPIP], End the Occupation - Northern Illinois, Gaza Freedom March, International Solidarity Movement-Chicago chapter, International Socialist Organization (ISO), Jewish Voice for Peace - Chicago, M20 Coalition, National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW), Palestine Solidarity Group - Chicago, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at DePaul University, The Palestine Working of the Center for Theology and Social Analysis (St. Louis), and the United States Palestinian Community Network.

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Produced and posted by HammerHard MediaWorks, a pro bono media project supporting peace and justice projects in the metro Chicago area.
 
 

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