Since 1967, 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned by the Israeli authorities. In Sheffield on Saturday a rally in front of the Town Hall was visually helped by use of a wire cage for visual effect. Blindfolded and kneeling, city centre shoppers had to think about more than Topshop.
Remembering Palestinian Prisoners Day, Sheffield 16 April 2016
Northern Women for Palestine comprises a group of activists who work to stage events across the north of England around International Women’s Day.
They connect the struggle of Palestinian women to the wider movement for justice and rights for all women. The latest visit involved events in Manchester, Saddleworth, Sheffield, York, Hebden Bridge, Bradford and Halifax.
The women pictured above have written about their experience for the Morning Star. We reprint it here.
For further information, contact Annie O’Gara at annieog@googlemail.com and (0114) 438-2351.
The right to roam walk in 2016 will take Caroline and fellow walkers from Morvich – 50 miles north of Fort William, to John O’Groats. (The full route for the UK 2016 right to roam walk is here)
We are wanting to celebrate the bravery of those who fought for the right to roam , how privileged we are to have that right and how entrapped by occupation and injustice are Palestinians who cannot move from area to area without moving through checkpoints.
The walk will end with simultaneous events right across the UK and in Gaza and the West Bank.
to raise funds for the Children Projects or via the right to roam giving page for the Sheffield Palestine Women’s Scholarship Fund.
Dont forget our ‘stop G4S here and everywhere‘ conference.
Here is a leaflet to distribute too
Please sign our petition to protect local democracy
Download: IWD programme in the North
Matthew Hancock was in Israel when he announced that democratically elected Town Councils would be prevented from boycotting firms complicit in Israeli Apartheid.
He states “We need to challenge and prevent these divisive town hall boycotts.” So a Tory Cabinet Minister does not want to be divisive! Can we expect a repeal of the Bedroom tax, repeal of the anti union legislation? and a repeal of the tax cuts for the super rich on the grounds that they are all divisive? I don’t think so.
Every law is divisive. When they passed a law stating that theft is illegal, all the thieves were discriminated against and rightly so. When we in Palestine Solidarity say Israel has been stealing land since 1948, this is a simple statement of fact. Israel has been using its military, economic and diplomatic muscle to oppress the Palestinians for the last seventy years. In 2005 the bulk of Palestinian Civil Society asked us to adopt a strategy of Boycott, divestment and sanctions as a way of putting pressure on Israel to end its repression.
The demand for BDS is divisive. On the one side stands people with compassion and solidarity for the oppressed. On the other are the oppressors and their allies. It was ever thus. Cameron’s forefathers were slave owners. Opposed to them were the slaves and the anti slavery campaigners like Wilberforce. In the last century white supremacists ran Apartheid South Africa. They were supported by the British and the American establishments. The Blacks organised and resisted supported by the huge Anti Apartheid movement. Even David Cameron says that Thatcher was wrong to have called the African National Congress terrorist and to have opposed sanctions.
So why do they want to rob local authorities of the right to make ethical decisions? Easy, they would lose the debate.
Whether the Government has the legal power to instruct local authorities to ignore such things as reputational damage is another issue.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/15/councils-and-nhs-trusts-to-be-blocked-from-boycotting-israeli-products
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/aug/27/uk.conservatives1
Sheffield PSC needs your support through 2016.
Our campaigning – on BDS, against the ridiculous ruling by the co-op bank, against the equally ridiculous and insipid declaration that PSC is a terrorist organisation, to increase awareness of the injustices suffered by Palestinian people – all these things need funds.
And so does our direct support for Palestinian people – whether through the children’s projects or the scholarship fund.
Please find out how here : SPSC Appeal – Version 2016-2.1 and act now.
