Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) report 08 – 14 October 2009

Photo: Current Israeli colony construction in the Palestinian West Bank.

During the reporting period, a Palestinian child of wounds inflicted by IOF earlier this year, and 5 Palestinian civilians, including a child, were wounded by IOF gunfire in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

On 12 October 2009, medical sources at al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron declared that Tha’er Sa’id Mohammed Abu ‘Ayash, 17, from Beit Ummar village north of Hebron, died of wounds he had sustained on 04 March 2009. According to PCHR’s documentation, on 04 March 2009, IOF moved into Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron.

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Interview: Independent Iraqi activist Asma Al-Haidari by Stefan Christoff

Photo: Urban skyline in Amman, Jordan.

Iraq’s refugee crisis extends across the world, as millions of Iraqi refugees have been displaced since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. A majority of Iraqi refugees are living in dire conditions and without permanent status in neighbouring countries, the largest populations residing in Jordan and Syria.

As media headlines remain focused on the ongoing and immediate daily violence inside Iraq, the refugee crisis expanding across the Middle East is often forgotten.

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Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, 19 October 2009

Photo: Zoriah (c) Destroyed Palestinian buildings in Gaza Strip.

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – The 47-member Human Rights Council (HRC) approved a resolution Friday endorsing war crimes charges against Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, as spelled out in a report by a four-member international fact-finding mission headed by Justice Richard Goldstone.

As expected, the United States threw a protective arm around Israel and voted against the resolution, along with some members of the European Union (EU): Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia, as well as Ukraine.

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Crash the party! Bring your shoes!

Thursday, October 22, 11am-1pm
In front of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel,
900 René-Levesque Boulevard

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October 20, 2009. Bil’in Popular Committee

Photo: Mary-Ellen Davis. Palestinian flag flying at popular protest in Palestine.

As part of the Village’s campaign against the construction of settlements on their lands, Bil’in has filed an unprecedented legal claim in Canada against two Canadian companies and their Canadian director. The claim arises from the construction of apartment buildings and the marketing and selling of residential units in the Modi’in Illit settlement which is built, in part, on the lands belonging to Bil’in. The lawsuit has been filed in the Canadian Province of Quebec where those companies and their director are registered and live.

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M. Parent, Mme Pauzé, and all members of the Centrale des Syndicats du Québec,

Photo: Motaz Satellites in Qalqilia – Palestine.

Tadamon! would like to congratulate the members of the Centrale des Syndicats du Québec (CSQ) on their recent adoption, by a large majority, of a resolution in support of the call made by 171 Palestinian organizations for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against apartheid Israel until Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.

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Montreal Launch of the international “Boycott Ahava” campaign!

Saturday October 31st 2009
12:30pm – 4:30pm
Phillips Square
across from the Bay at
St. Catherine and Union
(Metro McGill)

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ISM visits Linan Yosif Abo Gholbi on her release from prison

Photo: Freda Gutman Former Palestinian political prisoner Linan Yosif Abo Gholbi.

On Monday, October 5, 2009, a group of ISM’ers visited Linan Yosif Abo Gholbi in her extended family’s home near Nablus, at the invitation of Tanweer, a grass roots organization based in Nablus. She is one of the 20 women prisoners who were recently released from Isreali prisons in exchange for a video from Hamas proving that Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in 2006, was still alive.

Generations of Linan’s family have been fighters and PFLP activists in the Palestian struggle for justice. Many have died, many have been imprisoned. Her parents have spent years visiting their children in various prisons and at the moment one of her brothers is in jail.

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Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada, 8 October 2009.

Photo: Palestinian youth in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.

The uproar over the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) collaboration with Israel to bury the Goldstone report, calling for trials of Israeli leaders for war crimes in Gaza, is a political earthquake. The whole political order in place since the 1993 Oslo accords were signed is crumbling. As the initial tremors begin to fade, the same old political structures may appear still to be in place, but they are hollowed out. This unprecedented crisis threatens to topple the US-backed PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, but it also leaves Hamas, the main Palestinian resistance faction, struggling with fateful choices.

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Link by Jillian Kestler-D’amours, October 13, 2009.

Photo: Stefan Christoff. Wires in sky, Ein el-Hilweh, Palestinian camp, Lebanon.

Pictures of Fouad Sakr’s family line the walls of his modest Park Extension apartment in Montreal north.

“My son’s wedding in Lebanon,” said Sakr, pointing to a framed photograph displaying the smiling faces of his son, his son’s bride, his wife and himself.

On the other side of the room, school photos of Sakr’s granddaughters hang beneath two recognizable images: a small Palestinian flag and the Lebanese cedar tree, the country’s national symbol.

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