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Join the forum discussion on this post

UPDATE: Goodman Charged with Obstruction; Felony Riot Charges Pending Against Kouddous and Salazar

ST. PAUL–Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on Monday afternoon.

All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Salazar’s violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, “I’m Press! Press!,” resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman’s arm was violently yanked by police as she was arrested.

On Tuesday, Democracy Now! will broadcast video of these arrests, as well as the broader police action. These will also be available on: www.democracynow.org

Goodman was arrested while questioning police about the unlawful detention of Kouddous and Salazar who were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were arrested on suspicion of rioting, a felony. While the three have been released, they all still face charges stemming from their unlawful arrest. Kouddous and Salazar face pending charges of suspicion of felony riot, while Goodman has been officially charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a “peace officer.”

Democracy Now! forcefully rejects all of these charges as false and an attempt at intimidation of these journalists. We demand that the charges be immediately and completely dropped.

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities’ law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amendment rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which the Democracy Now! team was arrested, law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force against protesters and journalists. Several dozen demonstrators were also arrested during this action, including a photographer for the Associated Press.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and the subsequent criminal charges and threat of charges are a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists.

Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

Video of Amy Goodman’s Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

Video of Nicole Salazar’s Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jreRSEQ_yg

Goodman and two Democracy Now producers have been arrested on felony charges at the RNC.

>From John Nichols: “They are urging journalists and concerned citizens to contact the office of St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman (651-266-8535) and the Ramsey County Jail (651-266-9350) and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. The calls are important.”

Below is the full article by John Nichols of The Nation. Please distribute. In solidarity, Katie Q-J

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was among more than 100 people detained outside the Republican National Convention here as police clashed with demonstrators on the streets of St. Paul.

Goodman was arrested near the XCel Center, where the convention opened Monday, at approximately 5 p.m. Minnesota time.

According to a statement issued Dennis Moynihan and Mike Burke of Democracy Now!:

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sherrif Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

I was with Goodman earlier this afternoon, as she was reporting on the major anti-war demonstration. She and her crew were, as always, interviewing everyone they could in the calm, assured manner that has made the daily Democracy Now! program a widely-watched and well-regarded news programs on radio and cable television stations across the country.

Moynihan and Burke, in their statement, say that:

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amendment rights of these journalists.

They are urging journalists and concerned citizens to contact the office of St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman (651-266-8535) and the Ramsey County Jail (651-266-9350) and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar.

The calls are important.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild are also on the case.

• St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman
  651-266-8510
• Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak
  (612) 673-2100
  (612) 673-3000 outside Minneapolis

RNC2—Raid on the Convergence Center
By Starhawk
It’s Friday night. Our Pagan Cluster is sitting on the bluff of the Mississippi having our first real meeting, when Lisa gets a call. The cops are raiding the Convergence Center, where we’re organizing meetings and trainings for the protests against the Republican National Convention. It’s not a role play, the caller says. It’s real.

Instantly, we jump up and hurry back the six or eight blocks to the old theater we are using for meetings, trainings and social gatherings. I ‘ve spent the last two days doing magical activism trainings, teaching people how to stay calm and grounded in emergency situations and when things get chaotic. Now it’s time to put the training into practice. Aaron, a tall, red-headed young man who could be one of my nephews strides along beside me. “Are you grounded?” I ask him. He nods, and runs ahead.

Nobody can keep up with Lisa, who speeds ahead like an arrow, walking, not running, but still covering the ground quickly. Andy and I trail behind. We’re often street=2 0buddies, because we’re both big, slow, and supremely calm and stubborn, willing to wade into almost any situation and become the immovable object.

We’re stopped by a line of cops just before we reach the building. They refuse to let us through, or to move their van which is blocking Scarecrow’s car. There’s an investigation underway, they say, and won’t say more.

Brush, our dear friend, is inside, having gone to a jail solidarity meeting, ironically enough. So are two very young people who had just joined our cluster that night. I try calling Brush’s cell phone, but get no reply.

We wait. That’s what you do when the cops have guns trained on kids inside a building. You wait, and witness, and make phone calls, and try to think of useful things to do.

We call lawyers. We call politicians. We try to call media. We call friends who might know politicians and media.

Through the kitchen door, we cansee young kids sitting on the floor, handcuffed. We walk across the street, back, made more phone calls. An ambulance is parked in front, and the paramedics head into the building, leaving a gurney ready. Susu, from her car around the corner, reports that the cops have been grabbing pedestrians from the street, forcing them down to the ground, handcuffing them.

Song, one of the local organ izers, calls her City Council member. She wants to call the Mayor, Chris Coleman, who has promised that St. Paul will be as welcoming to protestors as to delegates, but no one has his home number.

What I have forgotten to tell people at the training is how much of an action is just this: tense, boring waiting, with a knot of anxiety in your stomach and your feet starting to hurt. Song talks to a helpful neighbor, who’s come over to find out what’s happening. He knows where the mayor lives, says it’s just a few blocks away, and draws us a map.

We decide to go and call on the Mayor, who could call off the cops. About five of us troop down there, through the soft night and a neighborhood of comfortable homes and wide lawns on the bluffs above the Mississippi. The Mayor’s house is a comfortable Dutch Colonial, and lights were on inside. We decide that just a few of us will go to the door, so as not to look intimidating. Song is a round, soft-bodied middle-aged woman with a sweet face. Ellen is a tiny brunette with a gap-toothed smile, and Lisa, formidable organizer though she is, looks slight and unthreatening. The rest of us hang back. Someone opens the door. Our friends have a conversation with the mayors’ wife, who is not pleased to be visited by constituents late at night, and who tells us we should call the office. The Mayor, she says, is asleep, a nd she will not wake him up.

We think a mayor who was doing his job would get up and go see what’s going on. Nonetheless, we head back to the convergence space.

A protestor has been released from the building. A small crowd has gathered across the street, and Fox News has arrived. They interview Song, who does her first ever Fox media spot. She tells them the truth—that people were in there watching movies—a documentary about Meridel Le Seuer. Meridel would be proud, and I’m glad she is with us in some form.

One by one, protestor’s trickle out. Now we get more pieces of the story. The cops burst in, with no warning. They pulled drew their guns on everyone—including a five year old child who was there with his mother, forced everyone down on the floor. It was terrifying.

They had a warrant, apparently, from the county, not the city, to search for ‘bomb making materials.’ They were searching everyone in the building, then one by one releasing them as they found nothing.

They continue to find nothing, as we wait through long hours. Meanwhile, more and more media arrives. These cops are not as creative as the DC cops during our first mobilization there against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Those cops confiscated the lunchtime soup—which included onions and chili powder, claiming they were materials for home made pepper spray.

We wait until the last person gets out. He’s a twenty year old who the cops have accused of stealing his own backpack—but apparently they relented.

And now it’s morning. I wake up to the news that cops have been raiding houses where activists are staying, bursting in with the same bogus warrant and arresting people, including a four year old child. They’ve arrested people at the Food Not Bombs house—a group dedicated to feeding protestors and the homeless. They’ve arrested others, presumably just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Poor Peoples’ Campaign, which had set up camp at Harriet Island, a park in the middle of the Mississippi, has also been harassed, its participants ordered to disperse and its organizers arrested.

Let me be perfectly clear here—all of us here are planning nonviolent protests against an administration which is responsible for immense violence, bombs that have destroyed whole countries, and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

This is the America that eight years of the Bush administration have brought us, a place where dissent is no longer tolerated, where pre-emptive strikes have become the strategy of choice for those who hold power, where any group can be accused of ‘bombmaking’ or ‘terrorism’ on no evidence what soever in order to deter dissent.

Please stand with us. Because it could be your home they are raiding, next.

Call the Mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Tell them you are outraged by these attacks on dissent. Urge them to let Poor People encamp and to let dissent be heard.

FLOOD THE MAYORS’ OFFICES ASAP

• St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman
  651-266-8510
• Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak
  (612) 673-2100
  (612) 673-3000 outside Minneapolis
]]> http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/31/starhawk-republican-national-convention-convergence-center-raided/feed/ http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/30/updated-info-on-activist-arrests-rnc/ http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/30/updated-info-on-activist-arrests-rnc/#comments Sun, 31 Aug 2008 04:01:46 +0000 admin http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/?p=400 From an activist in NYC getting reports as they come in:

I know a lot of people have heard that last night the convergence space in St Paul was raided and that today a series of houses were raided and some organizers were picked off the street and arrested. There is a lot of information to go over so I feel it is best to have everyone go right to the source.

Twin Cities IMC has minute by minute updates: twincities.indymedia.org
Coldsnap Legal Collective also has minute by minute updates: twitter.com/coldsnaplegal
UpTake Media has video of the raids themselves: theuptake.org

Please keep an eye on developments and calls for support. I am sure that I do not need to tell people this, but this is very serious and solidarity is needed.

Together we will stay strong!!

Dozens of anti-Republican National Convention activists in the Twin Cities area were arrested by law enforcement authorities, with pre-emptive raids on at least three activists’ houses and a local convergence center.

Chicagoans are reportedly among the arrestees, but names are not available at this time as many (if not all) of the arrestees are refusing to give the authorities their names.

Besides local authorities, FBI and Department of Homeland Security personnel have reportedly participated in the raids. Twin Cities Indy Media (http://twincities.indymedia.org/) reports that during the raid on the convergence space, over 65 activists who had gathered for a film showing were handcuffed, with most later being released. The full nature of the charges against those still imprisoned are not known, but Twin Cities Indy Media reports that at least some are being held for “conspiracy to riot.”

Taking a page from law enforcement harassment of actions in other parts of the country, local authorities have used alleged building code violations as the excuse to clear out two of the activists’ houses and begin boarding them up. The warrants to search for “bomb making materials” are being used to confiscate computers and MP3 players.

The Twin Cities is home of one of the most active “cop watch” programs in the country, Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB - www.cuapb.org).

Twin Cities IMC reports that “CUAPB president Michelle Gross and CUABP vice president Darryl Robinson were among many people detained during the convergence space raid. Upon returning home after the raid, they found their garage and Darryl’s car had been broken into. Nothing of value was taken but boxes of documents were clearly opened and gone through and many items were moved around. The activists believe strongly this invasion of their privacy is a direct result of their work and that it was probable that it occurred while they were at the convergence space.”

To find out about breaking news about actions around the Republican National Convention, we encourage people to check out the Twin Cities Indy Media website, http://twincities.indymedia.org/

Solidarity activities for the arrestees that Chicago area people can participate in are currently being organized.

Information about what you can do to help out will be posted here as soon as it becomes available.

_______________________________________________
Ccawrnews mailing list
Ccawrnews@ccawr.org
http://lists.ccawr.org/mailman/listinfo/ccawrnews

]]> http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/30/updated-info-on-activist-arrests-rnc/feed/ http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/27/action-alert-protest-police-treatment-of-dnc-activists/ http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/27/action-alert-protest-police-treatment-of-dnc-activists/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:11:09 +0000 admin http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/?p=377 For more information,
click here



LET THEM KNOW THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING!!!

For more information,
click here

Action Alert: Protest Police Treatment of DNC Activists

Contact: Colorado Legal Eagles
info@coloradolegaleagles.org [1]
For photos and more informaton, see:
http://www.coloradolegaleagles.org [2]
[Denver, CO] - Glenn Spagnuolo, one of the main organizers of Recreate68, was interviewed on Peter Boyles on KHOW radio Tuesday morning about the pepper bullet incident on Monday. You can listen to the full interviews here:
http://www.khow.com/pages/boyles.html [3]
Glenn said that the incident last night started around 5:30pm, when heavily-armed police in SWAT gear began making random sweeps through Civic Center Park, harassing people sitting in the grass by poking the m with nightsticks and telling them to get up and leave. Glenn complained several times to the protester’s police liaison, and the police would stop the harassment, just to start it again a few minutes later. He said that happened about 4 or 5 times. Glenn said some of the kids in the park became annoyed and formed a circle and started chanting “No Justice, No Peace” and put bandanas on their faces. He said that the police got worked up and came in pretty heavy and opened up with pepper spray and pepper bullets into the crowd without warning. The police chased the crowd through the park towards 15th and Cleveland, where there was another line of police waiting to surround the people running from the police and prevent them from leaving. Glenn says the police surrounded the crowd, which included frightened and crying children, and began pushing them back and crushing the crowd together. He said they were detained for well over an hour.
With their heavy-handed tactics and lack of warning to the crowds, the police clearly were trying to provoke violence from the crowd. There had been over 2 days of peaceful protests up until this inc ident. Instead of trying to arrest the trouble-makers without endangering others, the police chose to react by firing pepper bullet guns, pepper spray and tear gas into groups of innocent bystanders without warning and rounding up crowds of innocent people and detaining them for over an hour.
In other incidents of police harassment, Cindy Sheehan,=2 0an antiwar activist running for office against Nancy Pelosi, returned to her hotel room in Denver yesterday to find a man trying to plant a bug in her telephone.
http://obambi.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/cindy-sheehan-catches-a-man-tryin… [4]
According to Glenn Spagnuolo, the police had been stopping and searching the cars of Recreate68 and Unconventional Action activists near their convergence center north of downtown.
Another report on colorado.indymedia.org states that 5 members of the Solidarity Radical Library and Revolutionary Center from Lawrence, Kansas were arrested Monday in Denver without any reason.
Other activists reported heavy intimidation and harassment by roving gangs of heavily-armed law enforcement officers in the Civic Center Park Festival of Democracy and elsewhere in Denver.
Please call the officials below and te ll them to stop the harassment of antiwar activists by police. Forward this announcement to your friends. We need to let the city of Denver know that the “The Whole World is Watching!”
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper
Phone: 720-865-9000 (Denver 311)
Ask for the Mayor’s Office
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter
Phone: (303) 866-2471
They say it’s the Mayor’s responsibil ity, not theirs, but they still need to feel the heat.
###

]]> http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/27/action-alert-protest-police-treatment-of-dnc-activists/feed/ http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/26/did-the-surge-work/ http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/26/did-the-surge-work/#comments Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:17:28 +0000 admin http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/?p=370 Join the forum discussion on this post


The Big Questions About Iraq

By PATRICK COCKBURN

Will Iraq disintegrate if the United States withdraws its combat troops?

The US and Iraq are close to agreeing a security accord under which the US would pull its combat troops out of Iraqi cities, towns and villages on June 30, 2009 and out of Iraq by December 31, 2011. This will only happen if a joint Iraqi-American ministerial committee agrees that security in Iraq has improved to the point where the half million strong Iraqi security forces can take over. Other aspects of the draft agreement show that the government of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is increasingly confident of its own military and political strength. The accord now close to being agreed is very different from the one the US proposed as recently as March which would simply have continued the US occupation, much as it has been under the UN mandate which runs out at the end of the year. The main point about the agreement, if it is implemented as expected, is that the US will cease to be the predominant military power in Iraq from next summer for the first time since the US-led coalition overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Will Iraq be able to hold together as US troops depart?

Yes it will, but not because the three main Iraqi communities love each other. The Shia are coming out the winners and this was always inevitable once the US had decided to overthrow the predominantly Sunni regime of Saddam Hussein. The Shia are 60 per cent of the Iraqi population and the Sunni |Arabs and the Kurds are each about 20 per cent. Mr Maliki leads a Shia-Kurdish government in which the most powerful element is the Shia religious parties. The insurgency in which 4,300 US soldiers were killed and 30,000 were wounded was a rebellion of the Sunni community. This was the war to which the world paid most attention. But there was a second savage civil war between the Sunni and Shia which the Shia won decisively. They now control most of the government and the army. On the ground they hold at least three quarters of Baghdad after fierce fighting in the capital in 2005-7. The Sunni are now too weak to set up a separate canton. The Kurds need to remain part of Iraq, however much they may yearn for independence, because otherwise they face invasion by Turkey. The central government is becoming increasingly assertive against the Kurds, particularly over the issue of who holds Kirkuk and the right to award contracts for oil exploration and exploitation.

Does this mean that the Surge worked and the US has won in Iraq?

This is mostly propaganda. The Surge was the increase in US troop levels by 30,000 men from February 2007 and more aggressive tactics by the US army under the command of General David Petraeus. But even prior to this it was clear that the Sunni community was being driven out of large parts of Iraq, above all greater Baghdad. There was also a backlash against al Qaida in Iraq which had overplayed its hand by declaring the Islamic State of Iraq in late 2006. It has sought to marginalise or kill hostile Sunni tribal leaders. It killed or mutilated anybody who failed to obey its extreme fundamentalist Islamic beliefs. Hairdressers were shot dead for giving un- Islamic haircuts. But, above, all the Sunni could see that al-Qaida’s brutal and bloody use of enormous vehicle born bombs against the Shia had provoked a devastating reaction. Sunni nationalist insurgents had no choice but to end their guerrilla war against the US and seek US support and aid. There are now 103,000 members of al-Sahwa or the Awakening Movement who are paid for by the US. US military fatalities are down to only 18 so far this month. But the fall in violence is only partly to do with the actions of the US. It is a great mistake to imagine that the US makes all the political weather in Iraq. The main reason for the end of the Sunni insurgency against the US forces is the defeat of the Sunni by the Shia in the battle for Baghdad.

Is al-Qaida in Iraq finished?

It is much weaker than it was. It has lost its old bastions in Anbar province to the west and in much of Baghdad. But it is a mistake to think that it is wholly eliminated. The grim evidence for this is carefully planned assassinations of Awakening Movement members, usually by suicide bombers, that would require good intelligence and organization. Al Qaida clearly still has the capacity of launching massive suicide bombs against Shia civilian targets. Crowded street markets are very difficult to protect.

Surely life in Baghdad and the rest of Iraq is getting better?

It certainly is improving but there is a misconception outside Iraq about what this means. At the height of the Sunni-Shia sectarian conflict some 3,000 people were being murdered every month. In July this figure was down to just over 900 according to the Iraqi Interior Ministry which is better but scarcely a return to normal life. Baghdad is still the most dangerous city in the world. Sunni and Shia seldom visit each other’s districts. The best barometer for the real state of security in Iraq is the ability of the 4.7 million refugees inside and outside the country to go home. This is about one in six Iraqis who have lost the places in which they used to live. Often they live in miserable conditions in Jordan, Syria or other parts of Iraq but it is still too dangerous, despite all the talk of conditions improving Iraq, for them to reclaim their houses.

Where does Iran stand in all this?

This is the most misunderstood element in the Iraq crisis. The present Iraqi government had two main allies: The US and Iran. Their dispute is over who should have influence over that government. Iran has played a crucial role in the success of the so-called Surge. The Iraqi army fought poorly against the militiamen of the Mehdi Army in March and April. It was Iran that mediated a ceasefire on the Baghdad government’s terms. It was Iran which pressured the Mehdi Army leader Muqtada al-Sadr to call his men off the streets. A prime reason why Iraq is not going to disintegrate is that Iran does not want it to.

So the departure of US troops from Iraq will not mean a renewed civil war?

No. The main civil war is over. The Shia won and the Sunni lost. But the Sunni minority in Baghdad look vulnerable without American protection. The Iraqi army is increasingly moving against the Sunni Awakening Movement in Anbar and elsewhere.

Patrick Cockburn is the the author of “Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq“.

]]> http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/26/did-the-surge-work/feed/ http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/24/activists-break-blockade-of-gaza/ http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/2008/08/24/activists-break-blockade-of-gaza/#comments Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:02:23 +0000 admin http://tompkinsagainstwar.org/?p=361

Activists Break Blockade of Gaza
Israel Allows Boats to Deliver Symbolic Shipment of Aid

By Linda Gradstein

Special to The Washington Post

Sunday, August 24, 2008; A12

JERUSALEM, Aug. 23 — Two wooden boats carrying dozens of human rights activists reached the Gaza Strip on Saturday afternoon after the Israeli navy decided no t to hinder the challenge to Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian enclave. Thousands of Palestinians turned out to welcome the group, which brought token humanitarian aid, including hearing aids and balloons.

“It was really amazing — there were kids swimming out to see us and boats sailing out to meet us,” said Jeff Halper, head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and the only Israeli Jew on board. “It took us a day and a half to get here, and most of the activists got seasick, but the people here were so happy when we arrived.”

Halper, speaking by phone from Gaza, said the U.S.-based Free Gaza movement had worked for two years to arrange and finance the voyage.

He said he was surprised that the Israeli navy did not interfere with the boats, which left Cyprus on Friday. On board were 46 activists20from 17 countries, including an 81-year-old Catholic nun and former British prime minister Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, Lauren Booth. Blair is currently the envoy for the Quartet, a group of Middle East peace mediators comprising the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

Israel continues to cont rol the territorial waters off Gaza and has sharply limited the amount of goods allowed into the strip since the Islamist Hamas movement, which Israel and the United States consider a terrorist group, seized power there last year. Israeli officials say that they have allowed food and medicine into the territory but that they hope to encourage residents to overthrow Hamas. Since June 19, Israel and Hamas have observed a cease-fire, although about 40 rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Aryeh Mekel said Israel had decided not to stop the boats from landing in Gaza to diminish media attention.

“We took away the drama,” Mekel said. “They came, they were welcomed, but what will they do tomorrow? They were hoping for a long confrontation with Israel — now they won’t have it.”

Mekel said that the decision did not set a precedent and that future cases will be examined on their merits. But Halper said he believed the Free Gaza movement had in fact broken the siege of Gaza.

“Now that we’ve come through, what’s the excuse to keep the third boat out or the 10th boat or the 100th? We did break the economic siege of Gaza,”he said.

Halper said at least one of the boats will20sail back to Cyprus in the next few days, adding that activists hope to take with them Palestinian students who have permission to study in U.S. universities but were unable to obtain exit permits from Israel. It is Halper’s first visit to Gaza since the summer of 2000, before the beginning of the second Israeli-Palestinian intifada. It is illegal for Israeli citizens to enter Gaza or the West Bank without permission, and he said he is likely to be arrested when he returns to Israel.

Activists on the boat had earlier complained that Israel was jamming the boat’s electronic equipment, an assertion Mekel called “a complete lie.” Palestinian journalists who set out to meet the boats said they were forced to turn back after the Israeli navy fired warning shots at them. An Israeli army spokeswoman said no shots were fired at the boats.
Halper said that the Palestinians had asked for 9,000 hearing aids but that the group had the money to purchase 200. He said the frequent sonic booms of Israeli aircraft over Gaza had damaged the hearing of many Gazan children.
The Free Gaza ac tivists said they hoped Saturday’s landing would improve the situation of the Strip’s 1.4 million Palestinians.

“We recognize that we’re two humble boats, but what we’ve accomplished is to show that average people from around the world can mobilize to create change,” said Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian American. “We do not have to stay silent in the face of injustice. Reaching Gaza today, there is such a sense of hope, and hope is what mobilizes people everywhere.”

© 2008 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/23/AR2008082301855.html

Free Ga za

Breaking the Gaza Blockade

http://www.time. com/time/ world/article/ 0,8599,1835521, 00.html

time.com

Breaking the Gaza Blockade

Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008 By TIM MCGIRK/GAZA CITY

[ go to original for photo / Free Gaza
Members of the group Free Gaza, who left Cyprus on August 22 by boat,
arrive in the Gaza Strip one day later.
Khalil Amra / AP ]

The Palestinians in Gaza don’t get ma ny visitors. That’s because the
Israelis have imposed an air, land and sea blockade since 2007 when
Islamic militants seized control of the coastal strip on the Mediterranean, making it impossible for friends to just drop by. So
=0 A =0 A when two vessels loaded with 46 peace activists arrived on Saturday,
thousands of Palestinians lined the harbor in a party mood. Fishing
scows honked their foghorns and swarms of kids swam out to the
arriving boats just as the sun was turning the water to molten reds
and gold.

It was a remarkable odyssey for the two battered ships of the “Free
Gaza” movement, a U.S.-based pro-Palestinian group, which set out from
Cyprus on Friday morning with few hopes of reaching Gaza. The
activists,20who hail from 14 countries, said that before they even set
sail, they faced anonymous death threats, the mysterious drowning of
one potential sponsor, and constant badgering by Israeli spies badly
disguised as guitar-strumming hippies. “They kept popping up,
everywhere,” said Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, an organizer. “They were
really annoying.”

Once at sea, the activists - who include an 81-year old nun, a Greek
leftist parliamentarian and the sister-in law of ex-British Prime
Minister Tony Blair - braved a squall and a bizarre communications
blackout, which they say was caused by lsraeli electronic ja mming, and
which thwarted a rendezvous in heaving seas between peace activists
=0 Aand a ship of journalists.

The biggest danger they faced was possible arrest by the Israelis.
Earlier, Israel had declared Gaza’s waters to be a “designated
maritime zone” and warned the peace activists to steer clear or face
arrest. At one point, says Palestinian- American law professor Huwaida
Arraf who joined the20activists, the radar picked up three vessels
which were shadowing them from just over the horizon. The “Free Gaza”
c rew presumes the ships were Israeli.

But Israel chose to play nice, letting the peaceniks into Gaza on a
once-only pass instead of acting the part of a high seas ogre. “They
wanted a provocation at sea, but they won’t get it,” explained Israeli
Foreign Ministry spokesman Aviv Shiron. Now, Israel has to contend
with a barrage of international media coverage of the two peace
vessels sailing into Gaza harbor - and the publicity boon this will
give to the Hamas militants who have ruled Gaza since June 2007 when
=0 A they split with Prime Ministe r Mahmoud Abbas, who governs from the
0A Palestinian inland enclave in the West Bank. Hamas’ leader in Gaza,
Ismael Haniyeh, personally welcomed the activists. Israel and Hamas
are sworn=2 0enemies (the Islamic militants say they want to destroy the
Jewish state) but nonetheless they agreed to a cease-fire in June that
has largely held firm.

The cruise into Gaza was bracingly celebrity-free. As Jeff Halper, the
sole Israeli aboard the “Free Gaza” flotilla , says: “We didn’t have
anybody famous. It was old-fashioned ‘people power.’ We just wanted to
show what happens when ordinary people from around the world get
together to try breaking this immoral siege on Gaza.”

With international backing, Israel in 2007 clamped a strict economic
boycott on the territory’s 1.5 million inhabitants, barring all but a
minimum of humanitarian aid to the Hamas-controlled enclave. Some
Palestinians at dockside grumbled that the activists should have
brought in more relief supplies - they came only with 200 hearing aids
for children and 5,000 balloons. But as Godfrey-Goldstein says, “We
never intended for this to be a humanitarian mission. It’s about human rights in Gaza.”

The next question: how will the peace activists get out of Gaza? The
Israelis will probably allow them to sail back to Cyprus, without much
shore leave in the Palestinian territory. It will be an especially
circuitous and watery route home for Halper, who usually lives in
Jerusalem. “It’s funny. >From Gaza, I’m only an hour from home. I
should be able to go home by bus, but instead I have to go back to
Cyprus and then fly to Israel,” says Halper. Still, the voyage home
should be far less of an ordeal than it was running through Israel’s
sea barricade.=2 0

Copyright © 2008 Time Inc.

http://www.time. com/time/ world/article/ 0,8599,1835521, 00.html

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ht tp://www.boston. com/news/ world/middleeast /articles/ 2008/08/23/ israel_boats_ manned_by_ activists_ to_enter_ gaza/

The Boston Globe

Boats with pro-Palestin ian activists reach Gaza
Activist toss roses into the sea as part of a memorial service in memory of 14 Palestinian fishermen killed since the Israel seige of Gaza and 34 U.S sailors killed by Israel fire during an attack against the20USS liberty 41 years ago in the Cypriot port of Larnaca on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008.About 40 activists from 16 countries will set sail aboard the boats from the Mediterranean island for the estimated 30-hour trip to the Pales tinian territory. They say they will ‘non-violently’ resist any attempts by Israeli authorities to arrest them.

Activist toss roses into
the sea as part of a memorial service in m emory of 14 Palestinian fishermen killed since the Israel seige of Gaza and 34 U.S sailors killed by Israel fire during an attack against the USS liberty 41 years ago in the Cypriot port of Larnaca on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008.About 40 activists from 16 countries will set sail aboard the boats from the Mediterranean20island for the estimated 30-hour trip to the Palestinian territory. They say they will “non-violently” resist any attempts by Israeli authorities to arrest them. (AP Photo/Philippos Christou)

By Ibrahim Barzak Assoc iated Press Writer / August 23, 2008 20

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=0 A
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip—Two boats carrying dozens of international activists sailed into the Gaza Strip Saturday in defiance of an Israeli blockade, receiving a jubilant welcome from thousands of Palestinians.

=2 0
The boats docked in Gaza City’s tiny port after a two-day journey marred by communications troubles and ro ugh seas. As th ey arrived, children swarmed around and leaped into the water in joy, while thousands of cheering residents looked on from the shore.

On one of the boats, “End Occupation” was written in large letters and Palestinian flags snapped in the wind. The activi sts waved to the crowd.

“It was a tough time, almost 36 hours. It was very hard for many of us,” said one of the activists, Tom Nelson, a 64-year-old lawyer from Zigzag, Ore. “But the Gaza people are amazing,” he added.

He said he hoped the group’s arrival would draw attention in the West to the difficult conditions caused by the blockade in Gaza.

Under the closure imposed in June 2007 after Hamas violently seized power in Gaza, Israel has allowed little more than basic humanitarian supplies into the0Astrip, causing widespread shortages of fuel, electricity and basic goods.
Since setting sail from Cyprus early Friday, the mission by the U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement had been in question. Israel initially hinted it would prevent the vessels from reaching Gaza, and on Saturday, the group accused Israel of jamming its communications equipment.

0A
But late Saturday, Israel said it would permit the boats to dock in Gaza after determining the activists did not pose a security threat. The group delivered a symbolic shipment of hearing aids and balloons.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said Israel wanted “to avoid the media provocation” that the group was seeking. He dismissed the allegations that Israel damaged the communications system as “total lies.”

When the two boats were first spotted off the Gaza coast, five Palestinian boats rushed out to sea to greet them, while dozens of smaller crafts wait ed closer to shore.

A boy scout band sat in one boat ba nging drums and blowing horns, while another carried Gazan activists waving Palestinian flags.

“They are very brave, they are very strong, I am proud of them,” said Samira Ayash, a 65-year-old retired school teacher who came to watch.

Israel, which considers Hamas a terrorist organization, has closed its trade crossings with Gaza while ne ighboring Egypt sealed its passenger crossing, confining the strip’s 1.4 million residents.

Only a trickle of people are allowed to leave for medical care, jobs abroad and the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
=0 A

The 70-foot Free Gaza and 60-foot Liberty left Cyprus early Friday for the journey. The 46 activists from 14 coun tries include an 81-year-old Catholic nun and Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of international Mideast envoy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“In this media war, it was imp ossible for them (Israel) to win because they have no case for what they are doing to your port and to your borders,” Booth said.

The activists were the first foreigners to break the blockade. Organizers said they would stay in Gaza for 24 hours, though it remained unclear how they planned to leave. Israel controls all movement in and out of Gaza.
Gaza’s Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh welcomed the activists.

“We call for more activities to break the unfair siege imposed on our people,” Haniyeh said.
Mekel, the Israeli spokesman, said Israel’s decision did not mean that future deliveries would necessarily be permitted.

“This decision was about these boats. We will see what happens with any=2 0future boats,” he said.
Under a June truce deal which halted a deadly cycle of bruising Palestinian rocket attacks and deadly Israel airstrikes, Israel has pledged to ease the blockade. But Palestinians say the flow of goods into Gaza remains insufficient and there has been little improvement in the quality of life.

Israel has periodically closed the cargo crossings in response to sporadic Palestinian rocket fire that violated the truce.

———— ——–

Associated Press reporter Diaa Hadid contributed to this report from Jerusalem.

© Copyrigh t 2008 Associated Press.

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