Rally for Gaza @ Legislature Build.
Please do your part to show your support for our
Brothers and Sisters in Gaza.
Fundraise: IRFAN: www.irfan.ca
Lobby/Educate: Canadian Muslims for Palestine:
www.cmpalestine.org
Demonstrate: Canada Palestine Network: Saturday,
January 3rd @ 2:00 pm (Legislative)
Palestine support group holds rally, denounces attacks on Gaza by Israel
Sanctions against Israel called for as death toll climbs past 400
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, January 3, 2009
WINNIPEG – The Winnipeg chapter of the Canada-Palestine Support Network
(CanPalNet) will convene a rally this Saturday, January 3, 2009 beginning at
2 p.m. at the Manitoba Legislature, in protest of Israel’s latest, deadly
assault on the Gaza Strip and its peoples.
Organized with the support of other social justice and peace-focused
organizations – among these, Canadian Muslims for Palestine (CMP) and Peace
Alliance Winnipeg (PAW) – the rally will feature a number of speakers
(Palestinian and Jewish, alike) each condemning Israel’s week-long
bombardment campaign, which has resulted, so far, in the deaths of over 400
Palestinians, with thousands more wounded and displaced.
“Last Saturday’s attacks represent the largest massacre in Gaza since
Israel’s illegal occupation of the area in 1967,” states rally speaker and
CanPalNet (Winnipeg) member Bassam Hozaima.
Adds Hozaima, himself a native of Gaza: “Gaza had been cut off from the
outside world for 19 months and starved from the basic means of living and
health care.”
“We must mobilize and act to convince the Federal government to not only
denounce these acts of slaughter, but to persuade officials to engage in a
comprehensive campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against
Israel – much as was done in the case of South Africa under Apartheid.”
To date, more than 170 Palestinian and Israeli civil society associations –
together with hundreds of international NGOs, grassroots movements and
workers’ unions (including Canadian labours unions CUPE and CUPW) – have
appealed to world governments to enact BDS campaigns against Israel for its
human rights abuses against Palestinians.
States Canadian Muslims for Palestine (CMP) media spokesperson and Manitoba
lawyer Louay Alghoul: “We, as Canadians, are astonished from the statements
released by our government, where it justifies such unprecedented action of
Israel’s collective punishment to the Palestinian people and supports the
government of Israel in its recent massacre in the Gaza Strip.”
Continues Alghoul, also Palestinian: “Canada continues to follow the tail of
the Bush’s administration when it comes to international and foreign
policies – even when the rest of the world opposes it.”
CanPalNet (Winnipeg) organizers invite all Winnipeggers to attend Saturday’s
rally, which is to be held in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect, and in
full support of human rights and social justice for all peoples.
For more information, or to arrange media interviews, please contact rally
organizer and CanPalNet (Winnipeg) member Krishna Lalbiharie at:
(ph.): 204.947.5093
(email): noiiwpg@mts.net
French media: Erin Bockstael, Canpalnet (Winnipeg)
(ph.): 204.797.0534