London Guantánamo campaign action on 11 January 2009
The London Guantánamo Campaign with partner organizations held a demonstration outside the US Embassy in Mayfair on January 11, 2009.
Speakers included Green MEP for London Jean Lambert, CND Vice President and peace activist Walter Wolfgang, veteran peace campaigner and prisoner rights activist Bruce Kent, Martin Linton, Labour MP for Battersea, Camilla Jelbart, Campaign Coordinator at Amnesty International’s International Secretariat, Joy Hurcombe from Brighton Against Guantánamo and Imam Shakeel Begg from Lewisham Mosque.
Rap artist Mohammed Yahya performed a special song he had composed in solidarity with the detainees, and Mousa Brown who had been detained at Belmarsh and later acquitted by a jury in a “terror” trial spoke of his own experiences in the UK and how difficult it was for him and his family, even though he still had some access to them.
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Amnesty International fact-finding team in Gaza City ©Amnesty International
An Amnesty International fact-finding team arrived in Gaza City on Saturday, 17 January, hours before the Israeli government announced a ceasefire. The team travelled to Gaza by way of Egypt, entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing, and then travelled by road north to Gaza City.
As we were crossing the Egypt-Gaza border at Rafah on Saturday (17 January), an Israeli F16 fighter jet dropped a bomb nearby shattering windows and causing parts of the ceiling in the customs hall to fall. We knew we had arrived in Gaza!
Bar few exceptions international journalists and human rights workers have been shut out of Gaza since early November. We were among the very first to get in.
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On 10 January, Slovenian actors read poems and testimonies from Guantanamo detainees in the main square of Ljubljana, stopping people on their way from market. It was very cold but many signed postcards which we are planning to send to US embassy on the 20th of January together with the film from the event.
Jerneja
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Amnesty International / Action in Luxembourg, Guantanamo 7th anniversary
On the 12th of January 2009, Amnesty Luxembourg carried out an action on the 7th anniversary of Guantanamo in the main square of the city of Luxembourg.
We had a stand with information about the latest developments regarding the closure of Guantanamo and the detainees. Our volunteers walked dressed up as Guantanamo detainees: they collected signatures for the postcard to President elected Obama (155 signed postcards) and they asked to people to write messages to Obama on the orange overalls.
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Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, reports from the south of Israel
Doctors hold an injured child, Gaza, 27 December 2008. ©Sharif Sarhan
At the moment, it’s very frustrating, because I’m in the south of Israel and we’ve been on standby pretty much since the beginning of the crisis on 27 December. We want to go into Gaza to investigate the human rights situation there, but that is not possible. The Israeli authorities are not allowing human rights organisations, as well as the media, into the Gaza Strip.
I’ve been here for a few days in the south of Israel investigating the human rights violations committed by Palestinian armed groups who are firing rockets into civilian towns and villages in the south of Israel. I’ve been talking to victims, people who have been injured, visited houses that have been hit by Palestinian rockets.
Listen to Donatella Rovera report from the border (mp3)
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