HUNDREDS of protesters took part in a rally at Wells & South Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago in the United States yesterday, in protest at the recent Israeli raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.
The protest in Chicago came in the aftermath of a series of raids which have taken place since April 15, in which the Israeli police have used brutal force against Muslim worshippers praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied Jerusalem, in an attempt to empty the holy site to make way for Israeli radicals to celebrate Passover there.
The Chicago protesters waved Palestinian flags and banners that called on the Israeli occupation forces to take their ‘hands off Jerusalem’ and to stop their daily assaults on Palestinians.
Alderman Byron Sigcho Lopez, a long-time supporter of the Palestinian cause, addressed the protesters, saying: ‘This is the fight of the international proletariat revolutions … we see Zionists attacking our siblings, we cannot be quiet, we must denounce it!’
Lesley Williams from the Jewish Voice for Peace, told the rally: ‘How long will it be before Palestinian lives matter … we wonder how can that be when the press highlights every single Israeli death but ignores the scores of Palestinians that die every year.’
Frank Chapman from the Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression told the crowd: ‘I don’t have to be where my government is at – I oppose where they’re at.
‘We want Palestine to be free! Our solidarity is without conditions, however you fight in your liberation movement, we are with you!’
Emma Lozano from Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said: ‘We are both diasporas who know too well the hypocrisy of the former coloniser nations who now turn a deaf ear to our people.’
- Two Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli prisons currently remain on hunger strike for 52 and 18 days in a row in protest at their unfair administrative detention without a charge or trial, according to the Detainees Affairs Commission.
Khalil Awawdeh, 40, from the town of Idna, in the southern West Bank Hebron district, has been on hunger strike for 52 days in protest against his prolonged administrative detention without charge or trial.
He is reported to be suffering from headaches, fatigue, pain in the joints, irregular heartbeats, frequent vomiting and significant loss of weight after 52 days of hunger strike.
The other prisoner, Ra’ed Rayyan, 27, from the village of Bayt Duqu in the West Bank province of Jerusalem, has been on hunger strike for 18 days demanding termination of his detention without charge or trial.
Currently, Israel is holding over 500 Palestinians in administrative detention, deemed illegal by international law, most of them former prisoners who spent years in prison for their resistance of the Israeli occupation.
Over the years, Israel has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for prolonged periods of time, without trying them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their counsel to examine the evidence.
