Category: Activism

Juliano Mer-Khamis, RIP

Palestinians mourn Julian Mer-Khamis

The great Juliano Mer-Khamis is no more. He was killed by masked gunmen in front of the theatre he established in Jenin to help Palestinian youth resist the occupation creatively. I was lucky enough to spend time with him when he visited Glasgow to raise funds for The Freedom Theatre. He was a charismatic, big-hearted, and compassionate man. He also had a great sense of humour. It takes a real coward to attack a man like that. I hope the murderers are brought to justice soon. (Mondoweiss has more on this, including statements from the Palestinian Popular Committee and Gideon Levy)

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‘Israel’s Five Star Occupation: Get Europe To Pay’: Ali Abunimah and David Cronin on Israeli Apartheid

As David Cronin also puts it in the second clip (over the fold), “The European Union is chastising Israel with one side of its mouth, and kissing Israel with the other.” This London talk by Ali Abunimah and David Cronin was chaired by Oxford academic Dr Karma Nabulsi and hosted by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and KCL Action Palestine.

Ali Abunimah

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Protests against EU-India ‘Free Trade’ Deal

Activists fear a free trade agreement could risk lives that depend on affordable drugs.

India is one of the world’s largest producers of generic drugs, but a proposed Free Trade Agreement with the European Union could curb the supply of affordable drugs to millions of people. Many fear that multinational pharmaceutical companies will be the only ones allowed to produce and sell them. The proposed deal will affect millions of HIV positive patients in poor countries, who depend on generic drugs for their survival.

Al Jazeera’s Prerna Suri reports from New Delhi.

Gaddafi bears responsibility

French-Lebanese scholar Gilbert Achcar on the no-fly zone in Libya:

Over at Al Jazeera, Marwan Bishara asks:

So who bears the responsibility for turning Libya into a war zone and an object of an international military intervention?

Could it be those who confronted a peaceful civil uprising for freedom with lethal force, and when it escalated into a full-fledged revolt, used aerial bombardments, heavy artillery to quell it?

Libya could have and should have gone Tunisia or Egypt’s path of change. But while their militaries conceded the need for regime change, in Libya the family-led powerful militias, financed and groomed to defend the regime’s “country estate”, sided with their pay masters.

While the Gaddafis continue to show images of pro-Gaddafi demonstrators in Tripoli to offset the images of widespread anti-Gaddafi/pro-change, in reality, Libya is not divided between two visions for their country.

Rather between a majority that seeks free and prosperous Libya, and a mostly small heavily-armed minority that runs or benefits from a corrupt rule.

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Breaking Australia’s silence: WikiLeaks and freedom

‘Breaking Australia’s silence: WikiLeaks and freedom’ was a public forum held on 16 March 2011 at the Sydney Town Hall. The event was staged by the Sydney Peace Foundation, Amnesty, Stop the War Coalition, and supported by the City of Sydney.

Chaired by Mary Kostakidis, it featured speeches by John Pilger, Andrew Wilkie MP (the only serving Western intelligence officer to expose the truth about the Iraq invasion) and Julian Burnside QC, defender of universal human rights under the law.

Deadly crackdown in Yemen

Yemeni security forces have opened fire at a protest in the capital Sanaa, killing at least 30 people.

It is the highest death toll in a single day after weeks of demonstrations calling for Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, to stand down.

Witnesses say armed men opened fire from nearby buildings as protesters gathered in Sanaa’s University Square after Friday prayers

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reports.

The death of fear II

Rageh Omaar examines how the death of a street vendor led to a wave of uprisings across Arab world. (Also see Part I)

Rebel Airforce destroys Gaddafi’s ships

The RAF–i.e., the rebel airforce–has destroyed two of Gaddafi’s ships. Reuters reports:

RABAT, March 15 (Reuters) – An opposition Libyan news website reported on Tuesday that rebels flying a MiG 23 warplane and a helicopter sank two pro-Gaddafi warships off the eastern coast near the town of Adjabiyah.

The Brnieq online newspaper quoted an unnamed airforce officer at the Benina airbase in Benghazi as saying the two aircraft also bombed an unspecified number of tanks near Brega and Ajdabiya, two towns that fell to pro-Gaddafi forces on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Souhail Karam, writing by Tom Heneghan; Editing by Matthew Jones)