Hugh Lanning, Chair of Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Salma Karmi-Ayyoub, Palestinian Human Rights Lawyer are the speakers at a session on Palestine at the Manchester May Day Festival this coming Saturday (15:30-16:30 30th April). This is part of the international zone programme, details below
Details of The International Zone Programme Continue reading Manchester May Festival Palestine Session
Details
19th Apr 2016 7:30 pm Marple Methodist Church, Church Lane, Marple, Cheshire
The film Open Bethlehem is a story of Leila Sansour’s homecoming to the town. The film spans seven momentous years in the life of Bethlehem, revealing a city of astonishing beauty and political strife under occupation.
Film director Leila Sansour returns to Bethlehem to make a film about her home town, soon to be encircled by a wall. She left the city as a teenager thinking that Bethlehem was too small and provincial. She never wanted to return but this time she is making an exception. She intends her film to be a tribute to her late father, founder of Bethlehem University, and a man regarded as a hero by his town’s folk. As Bethlehem approaches ruin her decision to flee this sleepy town, taken much to her father’s regret, comes to haunt her.
Director and Writer: Leila Sansour
Details
19th Apr 2016 7:30 pm Marple Methodist Church, Church Lane, Marple, Cheshire
Speaker Niparun Nessa (Oldham NUT)
Nessa was part of an NUT delegation to Palestine in February of this year. The aim of the trip was to continue to develop new and existing links with teachers, trade unionists and activists, while finding out more about the issues ongoing in the area. The delegation stayed in Jerusalem, and also went to Yaffa, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron.
Writing about her trip to Palestine Niparun says “Palestinians are highly educated and place huge importance on education. Children have to pass through checkpoints to get to school and university and parents refuse to allow the occupation to stop their children from getting the education they deserve. We met many amazing and inspirational students whose smiles I will remember forever!”
Niparun Nessa has been a secondary maths teacher since 2009. She is the Assistant Secretary, Young Teacher Officer, and International Solidarity Officer for Oldham NUT.
Details Thursday 21st Apr 2016 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount Street, behind Central Library, Manchester
Waqas from Manchester Palestine Action recently spent 3 months in Hebron/Al-Khalil where he saw up close the horrors of Israeli occupation and the recent surge in violence. In the most shut-down area in Hebron/ Al-Khalil, Waqas was a witness to these crimes with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and will present his experience to us in Manchester.
“I’m just an average guy from Manchester, who decided to find out what was going on over in Palestine. When I arrived in Hebron, I could not believe what I saw. I honestly thought it was a recent and maybe temporary situation. I was told Palestinians had been living under these severe conditions since 1994 and it has only got a lot worse since October. I could barely put up with the harassment, body searches and checkpoints, I have no idea how Palestinians manage to live under such conditions. Unfair, unjust, inhumane would be an understatement.” Waqas
Details
Thursday 17th Mar 2016 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount Street, behind Central Library, Manchester
Assemble Palace Theatre 97 Oxford Street M1 6FT Manchester this Sunday 13th March at 12pm.
Click here for Facebook Event
Stand with the Palestinians against Israel’s brutal apartheid regime and military occupation. Tell the Palace theatre not to support a conference that glorifies Israeli war crimes – contact details below.
We’ll have speakers from Gaza, Palestinian music, and a lot of noise! Bring creativity, music, art, banners and lots of people!
We oppose all forms of racism – whether Islamophobia or Anti-Semitism. A rally showing such unanimous support for a state built on racism and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians is an insult to justice and freedom anywhere.
Protest called jointly by: Manchester Jewish Action for Palestine, Passion for Palestine, Manchester Stop the War Coalition, Fight Racism Fight Imperialism, Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Manchester Palestine Action
There can be no “stand with Israel” while Palestinians are denied basic dignity and human rights, while Palestinian homes and lives are systematically destroyed, while Palestinian children are murdered, injured and imprisoned every day by the occupying Israeli army.
The event is attended by the Israeli ambassador and supported by the Israeli Prime Minister himself, Benjamin Netanyahu who according to all the major international human rights organisations is guilty of war crimes in Gaza and ethnic cleansing throughout Palestine. For this rally to call for peace is an offence to the thousands of Palestinian men, women and children murdered by Netanyahu in the last two years.
This is a non-violent demonstration. It is pro peace, justice and freedom. We demand equality for all, not a state comparable with Apartheid South Africa, as stated by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and former US president Jimmy Carter. Every single living breathing moment of a Palestinian life is suffocated by Israel’ s illegal occupation and blockade.
It is disgraceful that the organisers of this event were standing with Israel while their army bombed over 62 hospitals and clinics, 45 ambulances and 250 Palestinian schools in Gaza, where over 500 Palestinian children were killed in 50 days during the summer of 2014.
Said Archbishop Desmond Tutu on his visit to Palestine:
“I have witnessed the systemic humiliation of Palestinian men, women and children by members of the Israeli security forces. Their humiliation is familiar to all black South Africans who were corralled and harassed and insulted and assaulted by the security forces of the apartheid government…The same issues of inequality and injustice today motivate the divestment movement trying to end Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory and the unfair and prejudicial treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government ruling over them.”
“‘Those who turn a blind eye to injustice actually perpetuate injustice. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Called by
Manchester Jewish Action for Palestine, Passion for Palestine, Manchester Stop the War Coalition, Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Manchester Palestine Action