Category: Press Releases

Support the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza

29 May 2011 | Free Gaza

Sign the petition and get updated news about the Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human

We are writing to ask for your support for the Gaza Freedom Flotilla scheduled to set sail in the second half of June to the besieged Gaza strip. You can help prevent an assault on the nonviolent activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza by signing on to our petition.

At least ten ships with dignitaries, doctors, professors, artists, journalists, and activists, as well as construction supplies and humanitarian aid, will sail from ports in Europe to Gaza in an act of non-violent civil disobedience to persuade the international community to fulfill its obligations towards the Palestinian people and end Israel’s four-year illegal blockade of Gaza.

This is the second, large-scale citizen-to-citizen flotilla to be launched by international grassroots groups. Organized by 14 national groups and international coalitions, the flotilla will carry approximately 1,000 passengers. It will include a US boat named The Audacity of Hope, which will have aboard dozens of dedicated social justice activists. Learn more about the US Boat to Gaza.

The last Freedom Flotilla in May 2010 included seven vessels carrying nearly 700 passengers from 36 different countries. Israeli commandos attacked the boats, shooting and killing nine passengers, injuring over 50 and imprisoning all aboard.This tragedy opened the subject of Gaza on the world stage and put considerable pressure on Israel to ease the draconian siege on Gaza – something the international community had failed to do for 3 years. Learn more about the Free Gaza Movement and support their efforts.

We ask you to sign this petition to show the overwhelming public support for an end to siege of Gaza and the rights for Palestinians. We also demand that the American administration apply pressure on Israel to ensure that passengers are not violently attacked and to allow the flotilla to sail to Gaza.

Petition Letter: Freedom Flotilla to Gaza

Dear President Obama,

We demand that the US government apply political pressure on Israel to ensure that passengers aboard the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza are not violently attacked by the Israeli military.

The Freedom Flotilla II, to sail in late June, will hold around 1,000 passengers demanding for an end to the draconian siege on Gaza. International organizations, including the United Nations, have condemned the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Your administration must pressure Israel to uphold international law and allow the Flotilla to pass to Gaza.

Around 50 American social justice activists will partake in this mission aboard a boat named, The Audacity of Hope. We ask for your support in ensuring their safety on this passage.

CCR files lawsuit seeking US knowledge of and role in Flotilla raid

24 May 2011 | Center for Constitutional Rights

Center for Constitutional Rights Launches Case Seeking U.S. Knowledge of and Role in Deadly Israeli Attack on Humanitarian Flotilla to Gaza

U.S. Victim’s Father Hopes Documents May Shed Light on Son’s Killing

CONTACT: Jen Nessel, 212.614.6449, jnessel@ccrjustice.org; David Lerner, Riptide Communications, 212.260.5000

May 24, 2011, Washington, D.C. – The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today launched a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking immediate release of documents that the United States government has refused to provide regarding its knowledge of and role in the deadly May 31, 2010 attack by Israeli commandos on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. Among the nine civilians killed was 18-year-old U.S. citizen Furkan Doğan who was shot several times as he was filming the 4:00 a.m. raid, and then shot in the face at point blank range as he lay there wounded. Fifteen other U.S. citizens participated in the flotilla, including five who traveled on a U.S. registered boat; many were beaten and injured.

Said Professor Ahmet Doğan, father of Furkan, “I have traveled twice to Washington, D.C. seeking answers and support in my efforts to achieve justice and accountability for my son’s killing. So far, my efforts have not been successful. I call upon the United States government to at least release information related to the flotilla attack and what it knows about my son’s death. Why isn’t the United States investigating the death of a U.S. citizen in this case?”

The federal lawsuit, Center for Constitutional Rights v. Department of Defense, et al was filed in the Southern District of New York against the Defense Department as well as numerous other federal departments, including Justice and State, and various components of the U.S. military. The initial FOIA requests were filed nearly 11 months ago: only two agencies responded, and their responses were wholly inadequate, according to the suit.

“One year after the deadly attack on the humanitarian flotilla, the American public has been told nothing about what actions, if any, the United States undertook to ensure that U.S. citizens and other civilians were protected when they sailed towards Gaza,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney, Katherine Gallagher. “A U.S. citizen was killed and the U.S. has not conducted an independent investigation into his killing in international waters by a foreign military. Indeed, the State Department did not even mention the killing of Furkan Doğan in its recently released Human Rights report on Israel. We need to know what our government is doing to protect us – and hold those to account who harm U.S. citizens.”

The attack by Israeli commandos took place in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea against a six-boat humanitarian flotilla headed to Gaza with more than 700 civilian passengers. One of the ships was registered in the U.S. The flotilla sought to bring food and other humanitarian supplies to the people of Gaza, who have been living under an Israeli blockade for nearly five years.

Commandos seized the property of U.S. citizens, including a video camera that recorded the raid, and Israel continues to retain control of this property. The Center for Constitutional Rights is seeking communications from and to the U.S. agencies named in the lawsuit that relate to the preservation of evidence that might shed light on the death of Furkan Doğan. The Center further seeks any documents that could show what steps the Department of State, Department of Justice and other agencies have taken to ensure that Furkan’s death be properly and independently investigated. The United Nations Fact-Finding Mission concluded that the refusal of Israel to return this personal property is, “a deliberate attempt by the Israeli authorities to suppress or destroy evidence and other information related to the events of 31 May.”

Said Jessica Lee, of the University of Virginia International Human Rights Law Clinic, which is co-counsel in the case, “With the blockade continuing, another humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza is planned for next month. The blockade cannot be reconciled with principles of international law; it amounts to collective punishment. Regardless of how one determines Israel’s legal obligations with respect to Gaza, civilians have the right to receive food and medical supplies. And United States citizens who participate in non-violent humanitarian missions have the right to know what protections they can expect their government to provide in international waters.”

To read the complaint, visit the Center for Constitutional Right’s legal case page or http://ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/gaza-freedom-flotilla.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

Jewish protester disrupts Netanyahu During Congressional Address

24 May 2011 | Move Over AIPAC

Rae Abileah is dragged to the floor after disrupting Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the US Congress.
Rae Abileah is dragged to the floor after disrupting Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress.

During the Joint Session of Congress while Prime Minister Netanyahu was speaking, Rae Abileah stood up from the gallery and shouted “Stop Israeli War Crimes.”

From the peace group CODEPINK, Rae is a 28 yr. old Jewish American of Israeli descent. She has traveled to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and witnessed firsthand the reality of occupation and oppression. “Prime Minister Netanyahu says that the 1967 borders are indefensible. But what is really indefensible is the occupation of land, the starvation of Gaza, the jailing of dissenters and the lack of equal rights in the alleged Israeli democracy. As a Jew and an American taxpayer, I can’t be silent when these crimes are being committed in my name and with my tax money.”

Ms. Abileah grew up on Half Moon Bay and presently lives in San Francisco. She was arrested and charged with disrupting Congress. Upon release, she can be reached at 415-994-1723.

This protest is part of the week-long series of actions, organized by CODEPINK as part of a coalition of groups gathered in Washington D.C. for a campaign named Move Over AIPAC. During Netanyahu’s speech to AIPAC yesterday, 5 individuals interrupted Netanyahu and were removed from the building (see: http://bit.ly/aipac2011).

Ahava’s theft of occupied natural resources finally exposed

21 May 2011 | Jordan Valley Solidarity

Protesters outside Ahava, London
After years of strenuous denial, Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories, an Israeli cosmetics firm with its main manufacturing plant in an illegal West Bank settlement, is proven by documentary evidence to be in violation of international law through its theft of Palestinian resources. This evidence was recently discovered by Who Profits, a research project of the Israeli Coalition for Peace, which documents corporate activity in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territory.

Prior to this finding representatives of Ahava repeatedly claimed that the company does not make use of natural resources from the West Bank: “the mud and materials used in Ahava cosmetics products are not excavated in an occupied area. The mud is mined in the Israeli part of the Dead Sea, which is undisputed internationally”. The new findings prove that the company was given a license for excavating minerals in 2004 from the Israeli Civil Administration, which is the representative of the Israeli government in the Occupied West Bank, and that the excavation site on the occupied shores of the Northern Dead Sea is currently active. By making use of mud that is excavated in the occupied area the company is violating international humanitarian law (the laws of occupation), which prohibits the plundering of natural resources from the occupied territory. Merav Amir, Coordinator of Who Profits, said, “Ahava can no longer continue misleading consumers about where they get the mud used in their products. This mud is from the Occupied West Bank and is stolen from the Palestinian people.”

Nancy Kricorian, the manager for CODEPINK’s Stolen Beauty Ahava Boycott (www.stolenbeauty.org), an international campaign against the company’s violations of international law, said, “Ahava’s CEO has been circulating a letter to retailers that we thought was filled with lies, and now Who Profits has provided us with the evidence to prove it.”

The company is still reeling from the public relations setback of an explosive new report issued on May 5th by B’tselem, a leading Israeli human rights group, which calls Ahava out by name as an occupation profiteer. Ahava representatives have yet to respond to B’tselem’s report, and the company’s reputation is now further tarnished by this just discovered documentary proof of its violations of international law.

Spirit of Rachel Corrie attacked by Israeli navy

16 May 2011 | Perdana 4 Peace

(Monday)
The Spirit of Rachel Corrie Mission, involving a Malaysian owned ship carrying aid for Palestine, has been intercepted and attacked by the Israeli naval forces in the Palestinian security zone this morning at 0654 Jordan time. Currently the ship has been forced to anchor in the Egyptian waters at one and a half nautical miles from the Gazan waters.

The vessel left the Port of Piraeus, Greece on Wednesday, May 11 carrying 7.5 kilometers of UPVC (plastic) sewage pipes to help restore the devastated sewerage system in Gaza.

The humanitarian initiative is sponsored by Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF) and participating in this mission includes anti-war activists and journalists, consisting of 7 Malaysians, 2 Irish, 2 Indians and 1 Canadian.

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Reproduced below is the transmission by Matthias Chang onboard the ship ‘The Spirit of Rachel Corrie’ to Perdana during the attack.

16/5/2011

From Matthias Chang, Mission Leader Onboard The Spirit of Rachel Corrie – Mission to Gaza

10:54am KL, Gaza 5:54am:
We have been intercepted by Israeli ship and Egyptian ship.
We are disobeying the orders and sailing ahead to Gaza.

10:57am KL, Gaza 5:57am:
One Israeli warship coming to us very fast!
We are in international waters, therefore they have no right to attack us.
We are still sailing ahead.

10:59am KL, Gaza 5:59am:
They are opening fire across our ship!
We are still sailing ahead.

11:09am KL, Gaza 6:09am:
They are shooting all over the place.
We can’t continue …

11:35am KL, Gaza 6:35am:
They circled our ship twice and fired across our ship. Machine guns.
No one was injured.
One of the fishing nets caught the propeller, so we can’t move now.

11:37am KL, Gaza 6:37am (Derek Graham):
The Israeli ship was coming from one end and the Egyptian ship was coming from another end.
Firing.
We are just stalled now.
Everybody is okay.
No one is injured.

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About PGPF
The Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF), formerly Perdana Global Peace Organisation (PGPO), is a first but resolute step in the arduous journey towards global peace, moves towards the single goal of putting an end to war. Its founder, YABhg Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, envisages “a serious, active and sustained struggle against war and for peace”. Sharing and supporting this agenda are world-prominent professionals, intellectuals, authors, statesmen – all passionate advocates of international peace. Together, they have signed the Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalise War.