Home Blog Page 404

5 April, Vancouver: Justice for Hassan Diab

Wednesday, 5 April
7:00 pm
Vancouver Public Library
Peter and Alma Room
350 W. Georgia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/154909335026169/

Justice for Hassan Diab: Why has a Canadian professor been abandoned in a French jail and what can we do about it?

Hear: Mr. Diab’s Canadian lawyer Don Bayne and Hasan Alam of Critical Muslim Voices speak about the 8 year nightmare of Hassan Diab.

View: Rubber Stamped: The Hassan Diab Story, short documentary just released.

Location: Vancouver Public Library, Central Branch, Combined Peter and Alma Room, 350 W. Georgia St, Vancouver, BC

Time: Wednesday, April 5th, 2017 at 7 PM

A BCCLA free public event, co-sponsored by Hassan Diab Support Committee (Vancouver). Endorsed by Critical Muslim Voices, Independent Jewish Voices, and Canadian Association of University Teachers.

Note: No ticket required. This is a free and public event. However, RSVPs are requested for event logistics and preparation.

RSVP HERE: https://bccla.org/events/2017/03/justice-hassan-diab/#rsvp

Description:
Hassan Diab, a sociology professor at the University of Ottawa, was arrested in 2008 in connection with the deadly bombing of a Paris synagogue that occurred 28 years prior in 1980.

After 6 years of imprisonment and house arrest in Canada, Mr. Diab was extradited to France in 2014. Because of France’s documented history of using torture evidence in anti-terrorism investigations and trials, human rights and civil liberties groups–including the BCCLA–opposed the unconditional extradition given concerns that if delivered to France, Dr. Diab–a Canadian citizen–may face trial based on evidence potentially derived from torture.

The Canadian judge who extradited Hassan Diab described the French case as “weak” and concluded that a conviction was unlikely if tried in a Canadian court. France’s new anti-terrorism laws permit courts to rely on secret “intelligence,” whose contents or sources have never been disclosed to Mr. Diab.

Since his jailing, French investigative judges recommended that he be released on bail, saying there was reliable evidence that he was not in Paris at the time of the bombing. An appeal panel over-turned these recommendations saying that Diab’s release would be a ” threat” to “public order”.

Don Bayne, a leading criminal defence lawyer, said Mr. Diab, a Muslim Canadian born in Lebanon, is Canada’s Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew wrongly accused during a strongly anti-Semitic time.

It has now been more than two years that Mr. Diab has been held in pre-trial detention in France. We are calling on the Government of Canada to raise Mr. Diab’s case with the French authorities. We have the gravest concern that this case represents a profound miscarriage of justice and the time to act is long overdue.

For more info:
Justice for Hassan Diab website: www.justiceforhassandiab.org

Friends of Hassan Diab Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/friendsofhassandiab/

Read BCCLA blog by Carmen Cheung, “The stuff of hope and trust – resisting the use of evidence derived from torture”:https://bccla.org/2014/11/the-stuff-of-hope-and-trust/

Note: No ticket required. This is a free and public event. However, RSVPs are requested for event logistics and preparation.

RSVP HERE: https://bccla.org/events/2017/03/justice-hassan-diab/#rsvp

We acknowledge that this event is located in Vancouver on unceded Indigenous land belonging to the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and səlil̓wətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

26 March, Washington: Support Palestine in DC, Protest AIPAC

Sunday, 26 March
12:00 pm – 5:00 pm
March from White House to Convention Center
Washington, DC, USA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1794689540780462/

This rally will start at the White House with thousands of people from across the nation and around the world and ending up in front of AIPAC’s annual convention!

AIPAC is the primary organization lobbying to continue the brutal illegal occupation of Palestine for over 68 years.

We must protest to end this outrageous lobby that ultimately supports the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Please come out and support the Palestinian people in their noble struggle to be free.

End U.S. aid to Israel — End the occupation now!

The National Rally to Support Palestine in D.C. is co-sponsored by the Ohio chapter of the Al-Awda, The Palestine Right To Return Coalition, and Midwest affiliates, and the ANSWER Coalition.

ANSWER is selling bus tickets to the rally and organizing buses. Get your bus ticket from New York City, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

 

25 March, Manchester: Justice for Basil, Boycott Israel, Free Palestine

Saturday, 25 March
12:00 pm
Piccadilly Gardens
Manchester, UK
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/244958425964251/

Basil al Araj is the latest Palestinian activist to be murdered in the West Bank by Israeli occupation forces. His death highlights the collaboration of Palestinian Authority forces with the Zionist army – and the sponsors of both, Britain, the EU and the US.

Take to the streets and support the building of a movement to isolate the Israeli state. Meet in Piccadilly Gardens before picketing banks and stores that support the occupation.

Victory to the Palestinian resistance!
Boycott Israel!
Free all Palestinian political prisoners!

Manchester Boycott Israel Group – Victory to Palestine!
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI) Manchester
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

www.frfi.co.uk

23 March, NYC: Picket to Free Maruti Suzuki Workers in India

Thursday,  23 March
4:30 PM
Indian Consulate. NYC. 64th Street
New York, New York 10065
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/401055433601396/

‘Rule of law’ at the service of ruling class.

On March 18, the Gurgaon sessions Court (Haryana, India) sentenced 13 Maruti-Suzuki Auto workers to life imprisonment. The convicted are all members of the union body that began a movement to organize in 2011. The conviction of these workers is a shameful example of how judicial systems around the world are playing to the tunes of corporate interests. Another 4 workers have been sentenced to 5 years imprisonment, out of which they have already served 4 years in jail. 14 workers are to be released with Rs. 2,500 fine as having undergone their punishment. In the absolute lack of evidence, the court has been forced to admit that the 117 workers acquitted after having spent close three years in jail were illegally detained, and wrongfully confined and it was an unlawful arrest. The criminalization and false imprisonment of these workers will continue to be challenged by workers in the court and on the streets.

Let’s send a message to the Indian Consulate that we are in Solidarity with the Maruti Workers. This action will coincide with the Martyrdom day of Indian Revolutionary Bhagat Singh and a mass rally in Manesar.

Release the 13 Maruti workers, the prisoners of class struggle!

Organizers:
Global Workers Soldarity Network
Labor for Palestine

Thousands of Palestinians join funeral of resistance for Basil al-Araj

Thousands of Palestinians took to the village streets of al-Walaja, near Bethlehem, on Friday, 17 March in the funeral of slain Palestinian youth leader and activist Basil al-Araj, marking his burial with the waving of Palestinian flags, chants and calls for justice and testimonials of love and resistance by his family, friends and comrades.

Photo: Activestills.org

Al-Araj’s body had been held captive by Israeli occupation forces since he was shot down in a hail of bullets in the home where he was staying in El-Bireh on 6 March. His family home in al-Walaja had been raided over 10 times as occupation forces sought to capture him after he was released from Palestinian Authority prison in September 2016.

Photo: Gerardo Flores to PMHN Palestinian Museum Of Natural History

Palestinians traveled to the village to attend al-Araj’s funeral and salute the slain youth leader. His family called for carrying only Palestinian flags, in salute to Basil’s commitment to Palestinian identity and liberation.

Photo: Gerardo Flores to PMHN Palestinian Museum Of Natural History

Participants chanted against the occupation, its assassination policy and the Palestinian Authority’s security coordination with Israel, saluting al-Araj and his commitment to struggle and resistance.

Photo: Gerardo Flores to PMHN Palestinian Museum Of Natural History

Al-Araj’s body was returned on Friday afternoon at the “300” checkpoint near Bethlehem, after which it was first taken to the Beit Jala Government Hospital by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society for autopsy. The autopsy documented that al-Araj had been shot by at least 10 bullets and his body had additional injuries from shrapnel and fragments. The cause of death was determined to be a bullet wound to the heart, reported the Palestinian Ministry of Health. In addition to the bullet wound in his heart, al-Araj was shot twice in the upper back, once in the right side of the chest, once in the rib cage, once in the abdomen, once in the liver and once in the spleen, and bullets and shrapnel were also found in his pelvis.  After the autopsy, his body was returned to his family in al-Walaja for the funeral march.

[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/taimalaraj/videos/171168676729770/” width=”800″ height=”” onlyvideo=”1″]

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian leftist party, “called upon the masses of the Palestinian people to converge in al-Walaja village to attend the funeral of the heroic martyred struggling intellectual Basil al-Araj, as he is buried on Friday, March 17 after his body was kidnapped by the occupation forces after they killed him as he resisted an invasion raid in el-Bireh at dawn on Monday, March 6, 2017. The Front also urged Palestinians to organize rallies on Friday to coincide with the reception of his body and the funeral ceremony of the martyr, as tributes and symbolic funerals.”

Photo: Activestills.org

Al-Araj, a prominent youth activist, had gone underground following his release from a Palestinian Authority prison after a hunger strike in September 2016; al-Araj and five of his comrades had been arrested by PA security forces in April 2016 in a case touted at the time by PA President Mahmoud Abbas as an important achievement for PA/Israel security coordination. They were tortured and imprisoned for five months without charges before being released after a hunger strike. Four of Basil’s comrades, Haitham Siyaj, Mohammed Harb, Mohammed al-Salameen and Seif al-Idrissi, have now been seized by Israeli occupation forces and are held without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Photo: Gerardo Flores to PMHN Palestinian Museum Of Natural History

As Basil al-Araj was buried with this march of thousands of Palestinians, New Yorkers held a rally and protest to honor al-Araj and demand justice. The New York protest followed events and actions in Palestinian, Arab and international cities organized to respond to the assassination of Al-Araj.. In New York, Washington, DC, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, London, Rabat, Tunis, Cairo, Amman, Beirut,  and Nahr el-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon, protesters joined fellow Palestinians and supporters in Gaza City, Ramallah, Haifa, Dheisheh camp and elsewhere in Palestine to demand the Palestinian Authority end security coordination with the Israeli occupation.

Photos: Activestills.org

New York protest honors slain Palestinian youth leader Basil al-Araj, demands justice for Palestine

Photo: Joe Catron

New Yorkers protested on Friday, 17 March outside the Best Buy in Union Square to demand justice for the assassination of Palestinian youth leader Basil al-Araj on 6 March by Israeli occupation forces. The protest coincided with the mass funeral for al-Araj held on the same day in his hometown of al-Walaja, near Bethlehem. Al-Araj’s body had been confiscated and held hostage by Israeli occupation forces for 11 days until it was finally returned to his family; thousands of Palestinians marched in al-Walaja to his burial site.

Photo: Joe Catron

The New York protest was organized by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Organized outside the Best Buy electronics store, demonstrators called for the boycott of Hewlett-Packard (HP) products and for HP corporations to end their involvement and complicity in Israeli apartheid, occupation and settler colonialism. HP corporations are contracted by the Israeli state to create databases and other technologies for checkpoints, biometric ID cards and the Israel Prison Service, among others. There is a growing international campaign for the boycott of HP until the corporation cuts its complicity with Israeli occupation. Unfortunately, however, HP seems to be doubling down on its investment in Israeli apartheid, partnering with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Jewish National Fund (KKL/JNF) for a “Brand Israel”-promoting photo contest in occupied Jerusalem.

Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace

Friday’s protest followed a series of events and actions remembering al-Araj and demanding justice for his murder. On 12 and 13 March, protests in New York, Washington, DC, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, London, Rabat, Tunis, Cairo, Amman, Beirut, Nahr el-Bared refugee camp and elsewhere joined demonstrators in Gaza City, Ramallah, Haifa, Dheisheh camp and elsewhere in Palestine to demand the Palestinian Authority end security coordination with the Israeli occupation.

Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace

Al-Araj was shot down by Israeli occupation forces on Monday morning, 6 March, resisting until the end. The prominent youth activist had gone underground following his release from a Palestinian Authority prison after a hunger strike; al-Araj and five of his comrades had been arrested by PA security forces in April 2016 in a case touted at the time by PA President Mahmoud Abbas as an important achievement for PA/Israel security coordination. They were tortured and imprisoned for five months without charges before being released after a hunger strike. Four of Basil’s comrades, Haitham Siyaj, Mohammed Harb, Mohammed al-Salameen and Seif al-Idrissi, have now been seized by Israeli occupation forces and are held without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Photo: Joe Catron

Demonstrators distributed leaflets and information about HP’s involvement with Israeli apartheid and the struggle of Palestinian prisoners to passers-by and Best Buy customers while loudly chanting for Palestine. Chants included “1, 2, 3, 4, open up the prison door! 5, 6, 7, 8, Israel is a racist state!” and “End detention, stop the crimes! HP out of Palestine!”

Photo: Joe Catron

Michela Martinazzi of Samidoun led chants and emceed the rally portion of the protest, when several organizations and individuals presented statements about justice in Palestine and the assassination of al-Araj.

Photo: Joe Catron

Sapphira Lurie of Fordham Students for Justice in Palestine honored al-Araj’s burial day by reading out his final statement, shared publicly by his family. It had been written in advance in case of al-Araj’s killing at the hands of occupation forces while he was living underground.

“Greetings of Arab nationalism, homeland, and liberation. If you are reading this, it means I have died and my soul has ascended to its creator. I pray to God that I will meet him with a guiltless heart, willingly, and never reluctantly, and free of any whit of hypocrisy. How hard it is to write your own will. For years I have been contemplating testaments written by martyrs, and those wills have always bewildered me. They were short, quick, without much eloquence. They did not quench our thirst to find answers about martyrdom. Now I am walking to my fated death satisfied that I found my answers. How stupid I am! Is there anything which is more eloquent and clearer than a martyr’s deed? I should have written this several months ago, but what kept me was that this question is for you, living people, and why should I answer on your behalf? Look for the answers yourself, and for us the inhabitants of the graves, all we seek is God’s mercy.”

Photo: Joe Catron

On behalf of the ANSWER Coalition, David Jamesnovitch read the statement from leftist Palestinian political party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, urging mass participation in al-Araj’s funeral and calling for the organization of symbolic funerals and protests to mark the occasion. “The Front said that mass participation in the burial of the struggler al-Araj and the organizing of symbolic funerals in Palestine and in exile represent a tribute to the martyr, upholding his values and principles as a leader among young Palestinians, dedicated to the culture of resistance as a way of life and as a means of resisting the occupation and all of its projects.”

He also reminded participants about the national march in Washington to support Palestine and confront AIPAC on Sunday, 26 March, noting that a bus will be running from New York City to the protest and that tickets are available through ANSWER.

Photo: Joe Catron

Nick Maniace of Samidoun presented its report on al-Araj’s funeral and the organization of events in support, noting that “His body will be returned without conditions, after an ongoing struggle for 11 days to demand the return of the captive body as occupation forces attempted to impose numerous conditions upon the funeral. Palestinians called for broad participation in the funeral and organizers throughout Palestine planned to travel to join in the mass tribute to al-Araj’s life and confrontation of the occupation.”

Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace

Joe Catron of Samidoun read a new call issued by Palestinians to end security coordination, urging the organizing of events and actions on 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. “It was Basel’s part in this fight that made him a target, and it is this that makes his assassination an assault on all those who strive for freedom and dignity. Basel embodied the revolutionary politics for which he fought. His refusal to surrender to the colonial regime, one that mirrored countless others who lost their life for the cause of freedom and justice, only renews our collective determination to struggle for liberation and return.”

Photo: Joe Catron

Samidoun will protest again in New York City on Friday, 24 March, at 5:30 pm outside the Best Buy in Union Square at 52 E. 14th Street in Manhattan. The protest will once again demand an end to HP’s profiteering from Israeli apartheid and will focus on the case of Palestinian administrative detainee and hunger striker Mohammed Alaqimah, who will reach his 28th day of hunger strike against his imprisonment without charge or trial on Friday. All are welcome to attend and participate in Friday’s demonstration. Samidoun activists will also join in the 26 March protest in Washington, DC to support Palestine and protest AIPAC.

Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace

24 March, NYC: Protest to free Mohammed Alaqimah and stop HP

Friday, 24 March
5:30 pm
Best Buy Union Square
52 E. 14th St, NYC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1239235566196211/

On March 24, Mohammed Alaqimah will reach the 28th day of an open strike against his “administrative detention” – arbitrary internment without charge or trial – by Israel.

Mohammed, a 27-year-old husband and father of two from the village of Barta’a, near Jenin in the West Bank, was captured by Israeli occupation forces at a checkpoint on August 16.

His “administrative detention” order, issued by an Israeli military commander using “secret evidence” and subject to indefinite extensions, has already been renewed three times.

Mohammed launched an earlier hunger strike on December 26 before suspending it on January 3 amid rumors that his detention would not be renewed.

Stand with Mohammed to demand that Israel release him, 530 other “administrative detainees,” and all 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners immediately, and that Hewlett Packard companies end their contracts with Israeli prisons and detention centers, occupation and security forces, and checkpoints and settlements now.

Help build a growing international campaign to boycott HP over the companies’ support for Israeli crimes.

Support the Palestinian people, the Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian Resistance, and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

18 March, Berlin: Freedom for all Political Prisoners

Saturday, 18 March
12:00 pm
Hermannplatz
10967 Berlin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/389878974730824/

Organized by Jugendwiderstand

Join us to demonstrate against class oppression and imperialist oppression. Freedom for all political prisoners!

This protest is organized to defend political prisoners around the world and confront capitalism and exploitation. The demonstration will address repression in Germany, including against the ATIK association, of which 10 members have been detained since 2015, as well as the trial of Musa Asoglu and Kurdish prisoners in German jails. Activists in Berlin, Magdeburg and Stuttgart are also facing political charges in Germany.

The proest will also support Turkish and Kurdish political prisoners in Turkish jails, revolutionary activists and imprisoned wokers in India, and prisoners in the Philippines and Peru. The protest will also highlight thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, including PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat. Protesters will also demand freedom for Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, held for 32 years in French prisons, as well as Basque and Irish prisoners and imprisoned Greek activists. The protest will also rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and other political prisoners in US jails.

This protest is organized in support of revolutionary prisoners and for anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggle, in solidarity with the international resistance movement and international working class.

Mass funeral for Basil al-Araj today in Palestine; protests in solidarity in New York City, elsewhere

Slain Palestinian youth leader Basil al-Araj will be buried today in his hometown of al-Walaja near Bethlehem in a mass funeral. His body has been held captive by Israeli occupation forces since 6 March, when they killed him as he resisted their invasion of the home where he was staying in El-Bireh.

Al-Araj’s family announced that occupation forces will turn over his body at 4:00 pm local time in Palestine and that his funeral ceremony will begin the moment that his body is returned. Prayers will be held adjacent to the family home in the street, and only Palestinian flags will be carried in the funeral procession to the cemetery, where he will be buried. Condolences will be accepted by the family in al-Araj’s parents’ home. His body will be returned without conditions, after an ongoing struggle for 11 days to demand the return of the captive body as occupation forces attempted to impose numerous conditions upon the funeral.

Palestinians called for broad participation in the funeral and organizers throughout Palestine planned to travel to join in the mass tribute to al-Araj’s life and confrontation of the occupation.

Additional organizations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian leftist political party, urged simultaneous mobilizations and the organizing of symbolic funerals, saying that “the organizing of symbolic funerals in Palestine and in exile represent a tribute to the martyr, upholding his values and principles as a leader among young Palestinians, dedicated to the culture of resistance as a way of life and as a means of resisting the occupation and all of its projects.”

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is organizing a protest in New York City today, Friday, 17 March, to protest the murder of Basil al-Araj and Israeli policies of imprisonment and assassination. Protesters will gather at 5:30 pm at Union Square Best Buy, 52 E. 14th Street, in New York City. All are welcome to attend the protest, participate in the demonstration and demand justice for Basil al-Araj.

Al-Araj was shot down by Israeli occupation forces on Monday morning, 6 March, resisting until the end. The prominent youth activist had gone underground following his release from a Palestinian Authority prison after a hunger strike; al-Araj and five of his comrades had been arrested by PA security forces in April 2016 in a case touted at the time by PA President Mahmoud Abbas as an important achievement for PA/Israel security coordination. They were tortured and imprisoned for five months without charges before being released after a hunger strike. Four of Basil’s comrades, Haitham Siyaj, Mohammed Harb, Mohammed al-Salameen and Seif al-Idrissi, have now been seized by Israeli occupation forces and are held without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Following his assassination, Palestinians have taken the streets in Palestine and internationally to demand justice for al-Araj and an end to PA security coordination with Israel, including in New York, Washington, Brussels, Berlin, London, Vienna, Gaza City, Haifa, Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, Dheisheh refugee camp and Ramallah. The Ramallah and Dheisheh protests were violently attacked by PA forces in an attempt to suppress them, sparking growing demands against the PA’s continued involvement with the imprisonment of Palestinians for the benefit of the occupation.

Leuven protest demands Belgian university end collaboration with Israeli police

Activists gathered in Leuven’s crowded Oude Markt in the Belgian university city on Thursday, 16 March, to demand an end to participation by KU Leuven (the Catholic University of Leuven) and Belgian police and prosecutors in an EU-funded collaboration with Israeli police. Titled LAW-TRAIN, the project aims to “develop interrogation techniques.” A coalition of groups in Belgium have come together to oppose participation in LAW-TRAIN and end such collaborations with Israeli institutions through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research fund.

Organized by Leuven-based groups, including Comac Leuven, Intal and the Leuven Palestine Action Group, participants from a number of organizations, including Palestina Solidariteit and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, joined in the awareness-raising street theater-style protest calling on KU Leuven’s rector, Rik Torfs, to pull out of the project.

Students representing ‘detainees’ were tied to chairs in front of a university building in the square as ‘Israeli soldiers’ paced menacingly behind them. Other participants held signs and placards calling on KU Leuven to get out of the LAW-TRAIN project and support Palestinian human rights, while speakers addressed students and others in the busy square in Dutch and English about the LAW-TRAIN program and Israeli torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. Activists distributed flyers and information and gathered signatures on the petition demanding Belgian institutions stop participating in LAW-TRAIN.

Activists across Belgium have emphasized the involvement of the Israeli police in the torture, repression and interrogation of Palestinians from Jerusalem and Palestine ’48, as well as their involvement in home demolitions and destruction of Bedouin Palestinian communities in the Naqab. The Israeli Ministry of Public Security, presided over by far-right minister Gilad Erdan, who also holds the state’s anti-BDS portfolio seeking to suppress the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions, is also a partner in the project, along with Bar-Ilan University.

“We are protesting the collaboration between KU Leuven and, among others, the Israeli police and Bar-Ilan University. KU Leuven now has ties with the Israeli police and the Israeli security forces, who have been condemned by organizations such as Amnesty International on numerous occasions for their human rights violations and torture practices. We believe it is not OK for a university such as KU Leuven to continue this collaboration. It is condoning and accepting these human rights violations so long as this continues. We want to call on our Rector, who’s been ignoring this whole matter, to end this collaboration,” said Casper Mullie, a student of philosophy at KU Leuven participating in the protest.

“As students, we cannot accept that our universities and institutions where we pay fees every year, to participate in projects that violate Palestinian human rights. In this case, the human rights violations are particularly egregious,” said Ibrahim, a student organizer with Rise Up who traveled from Brussels to participate in the protest in Leuven.

Hundreds of Belgian academics and cultural workers have signed an open letter organized by BACBI,
the Belgian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
, calling on the Belgian government and universities to break with the project. In addition, a delegation of high-profile Belgian lawyers and human rights experts traveled to Palestine to study the use of torture by Israeli police and security forces. Israeli Apartheid Week events organized by students at campuses across Belgium had a strong focus on Palestinian prisoners and the campaign to stop LAW-TRAIN.

Samidoun is a member of the coalition against LAW-TRAIN, along with Intal, Comac, Palestina Solidariteit, BACBI, Medicine for the Third World, Vrede, CNAPD, Broderlijk Delen, 11.11.11, Solidarite Socialiste, Een Andere Joodse Stem (Another Jewish Voice), EcoloJ, CNCD 11.11.11, Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine, Association Belgo-Palestinienne, Leuven Palestine Action Group, Pax Christi Vlaanderen and the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP).

TAKE ACTION: Sign the petition against LAW-TRAIN at http://stop-law-train.be 

Major LAW-TRAIN resources include: