Press release – for immediate release The NSW Police have contacted the organisers of the Al-Nakba commemoration march in Sydney threatening to seek a Supreme Court injunction unless the march is cancelled. The protesters have decided to assert their right to public protest, saying that they will contest any attempt to prohibit the march.
“Only a few weeks ago, 3 Israeli activists were arrested for trying to commemorate Al-Nakba. Now the NSW Police are showing their true colours by trying to silence free speech and political protest in support of the Palestinians”, said Patrick Langosch, one of the protest organisers.
Al-Nakba (“the catastrophe” in Arabic) marks the anniversary May 15th 1948 when Israel was established over the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their land. The date is traditionally marked by commemorations and protests against the apartheid policies of the Israeli government and their continued oppression of the Palestinian people. Israel has taken measures to disrupt the commemoration of Al-Nakba including intimidation and arrest of activists and cutting of funding to NGOs involved in Al-Nakba related activities.
The march is going to be held on Tuesday May 15th at 6pm at Sydney Town Hall and includes speakers from the General Union of Palestinian Workers, Jews Against the Occupation, and young Palestinian activists.
Link: Coverage of arrest of Israeli activists attempting to commemorate Nakba.
Media Contact - Patrick Langosch - 0422028113
Comments
The leaders of Israel issued a plea for the Arabs to stay
Please check your facts before publishing an article. You do yourselves no justice.
You say "May 15th 1948 when Israel was established" QUITE CORRECT
You say "dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their land. " WRONG
Some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs, not Palestinians left their land voluntarily. There has never been a country called Palestine, which makes your claim of "hundreds of thousands of Palestinians" UNTRUE
The leaders of Israel issued a plea for the Arabs to stay and be part of the State of Israel. It's a very well documented fact, which you can search for yourselves, even in the Arab media. Abbas has stated it himself.
They left at the insistence of their own leaders who promised “Once the Zionst entity had been annihilated they would return”
FYI too, over one million Jews were forced from Arab lands, leaving homes, and thriving businesses and taking no possessions at all with them. In some cases being force to sign their homes etc over to the government.
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_independence_refugees_arabs_why.php
“There is an overwhelming body of evidence from contemporary Arab, Jewish, British, and American sources to prove that, far from seeking to drive the Arabs out of Haifa, the Jewish authorities went to considerable lengths to convince them to stay. During the fighting in the city in April 1948, The Hagana’s truce terms stipulated that Arabs were expected to "carry on their work as equal and free citizens of Haifa." In its Arabic-language broadcasts and communications, the Hagana consistently articulated the same message. On April 22, at the height of the fighting, it distributed a circular noting its ongoing campaign to clear the town of all "criminal foreign bands" so as to allow the restoration of "peace and security and good neighborly relations among all of the town’s inhabitants."