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Palestinian #FreedomRides – Special Topic

November 9, 2011 by occupiedpalestine 0 Comments

FreedomRides | For Pictures click here

Human Rights Art 13:1:
“Everyone has the right 2 freedom of movement & residence within the borders of each state”




BREAKING |  All detained activists have been released from Atarot prison.| Pal Time 22:43

ACTION ALERT | Freedom for the Freedom Riders! End the Israeli Occupation of Palestine!

This action is being coordinated with Jewish Voice for Peace and the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee to demand the next Freedom Riders will be granted passage, sign the petition! | CodePink | US

DEMO NYC  | JOIN US TODAY in New York City : 11/15 @ 5:30 p.m. Solidarity with PalFreedomRides 

DEMO BARCELONA | demà dimecres 16 a Barcelona es pujarà a bus en solidaritat amb #freedomriders avui a Palestina. 17.30 Pl. Catalunya

SPECIAL TOPIC WILL BE CONTINUOUSLY UPDATES BELOW THE ARTICLE/ANNOUNCEMENT




Press Information

For inquiries send an email to palestinianfreedomriders@gmail.com

Media contact: Hurriyah Ziada             +970-59-234-6895      

Press Release | Palestinian Freedom Riders On Their Way to Jerusalem Violently Arrested on Israeli Settler Bus

Press Briefing |  Putting FreedomRides in context   – The IMEU


Palestinian Freedom Riders to Challenge Segregation By Riding Settler Buses to Jerusalem: November 15, 2011

Palestinian activists will reenact the US Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Rides to the American South by boarding segregated Israeli public transportation in the West Bank to travel to occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli public transportation headed from inside the West Bank to occupied East Jerusalem in an act of civil disobedience inspired by the Freedom Riders of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s.

Fifty years after the U.S. Freedom Riders staged mixed-race bus rides through the roads of the segregated American South, Palestinian Freedom Riders will be asserting their right for liberty and dignity by disrupting the military regime of the Occupation through peaceful civil disobedience.

The Freedom Riders seek to highlight Israel’s attempts to illegally sever occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, and the apartheid system that Israel has imposed on Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Several Israeli companies, among them Egged and Veolia, operate dozens of lines that run through the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state. They run between different Israeli settlements, connecting them to each other and cities inside Israel. Some lines connecting Jerusalem to other cities inside Israel, such as Eilat and Beit She’an, are also routed to pass through the West Bank.

Israelis suffer almost no limitations on their freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian territory, and are even allowed to settle in it, contrary to international law. Palestinians, in contrast, are not allowed to enter Israel without procuring a special permit from Israeli authorities. Even Palestinian movement inside the Occupied Territories is heavily restricted, with access to occupied East Jerusalem and some 8% of the West Bank in the border area also forbidden without a similar permit.

While it is not officially forbidden for Palestinians to use Israeli public transportation in the West Bank, these lines are effectively segregated, since many of them pass through Jewish-only settlements, to which Palestinian entry is prohibited by a military decree.

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Freedom Rides Information & Background

Inspired by the Freedom Rides of the US Civil Rights Movement Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli settler buses to occupied East Jerusalem

ISM | Nov 13, 2011

Groups of Palestinian Freedom Riders will attempt to board segregated settler buses heading to Jerusalem through the occupied West Bank this Tuesday November 15, in an act of civil disobedience that takes its inspiration from the US Civil Rights Movement Freedom Riders aim to challenge Israel’s apartheid policies, the ban on Palestinians’ access to Jerusalem, and the overall segregated reality created by a military and settler occupation that is the cornerstone of Israel’s colonial regime. While parallels exist between occupied Palestine and the segregated U.S. South in terms of the underlying racism and the humiliating treatment suffered then by blacks and now by Palestinians, there are also significant differences. In the 1960s U.S. South, black people had to sit in the back of the bus; in occupied Palestine, Palestinians are not even allowed ON the bus nor on the roads that the buses travel on, which are built on stolen Palestinian land.

In undertaking this action Palestinians do not seek the desegregation of settler buses, as the presence of these colonizers and the infrastructure that serves them is illegal and must be dismantled. As part of their struggle for freedom, justice and dignity, Palestinians demand the ability to be able to travel freely on their own roads, on their own land, including the right to travel to Jerusalem.

Palestinian activists also aim to expose two of the companies that profit from Israel’s apartheid policies and encourage global boycott of and divestment from them. The Israeli Egged and French Veolia bus companies operate dozens of segregated lines that run through the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state. Both companies are also involved in the Jerusalem Light Rail, a train project that links illegal settlements in East Jerusalem to the western part of the city. By facilitating population transfer into occupied Palestinian territory, Egged and Veolia are actively and knowingly complicit in Israel’s settlement enterprise, which the International Court of Justice has determined to be a breach of international law, and particularly Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting an occupying power from transferring part of its population into occupied territory.

This Tuesday, Palestinian Freedom Riders will head to Jewish-only bus stops in the West Bank and attempt to board the settler buses. Palestinians understand that this act of nonviolent disobedience may result in violent attacks and even death at the hands of Israeli settlers that are to Israel what the Klu Klux Klan was to the Jim Crow South, or the authorities that protect them. Nonetheless, the Freedom Riders believe that this act of civil resistance is necessary to draw the attention of the world to the immorality of Israel’s occupation and apartheid system as well as to compel justice-loving people to take a stand and divest from Egged, Veolia, and all companies that enable and profit from it.

The Freedom Riders will be joined by activists from all around the world who will stage activities in their cities that highlight the systematic oppression of Palestinians and the need to divest from Egged and Veolia.

Background

The buses that the Freedom Riders will be boarding are operated by the Egged, the largest Israeli public transportation company, and by the French transnational company Veolia. Both companies are complicit in Israel’s violations of international law due to their involvement in and profiting from Israeli’s illegal settlement infrastructure. Palestinian Freedom Riders endorse the call for boycotting both companies, as well as all others involved in Israel’s violations of human rights and international law.[1]

In July 2011, an Egged subsidiary won a public tender to run bus services in the Waterland region of the Netherlands, north of Amsterdam. The company makes money from trampling on the rights of Palestinians and has been a target of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, which is endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Palestinian civil society. The Freedom Riders call on the people of the Netherlands to sever all dealings with companies, like Egged, involved in human rights violations.

Veolia, has been a target of an international divestment campaign or running bus lines through the West Bank connecting settlements to Jerusalem and for its involvement in the Jerusalem Light Rail which connects Israel’s illegal settlements in and around occupied East Jerusalem to the western part of the city, thereby directly servicing the settlement enterprise.[2]

Over 42 percent of Palestinian land in the West Bank has been taken over for the building of Jewish settlements and their associated regime[3] (including the wall which was declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004), depriving local communities of access to their water resources as well as agricultural lands. Settling Israelis in the occupied Palestinian territory constitutes a war crime according to the Fourth Geneva Convention[4] and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.[5]

The occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip constitute only 22 percent of the Palestinian homeland from which over 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948 when the state of Israel was created. Since then, Palestinian refugees have been languishing in refugee camps and other places of exile, denied the right to return to their homes.

[1] Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS, available at: http://www.bdsmovement.net/call.

[2] http://www.bigcampaign.org/veolia/

[3] B’tselem Report: “By Hook and By Crook, Israeli Settlement Policy in the West Bank,” July 2010; summary available at: http://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/201007_by_hook_and_by_crook.

[4] See “Israel’s settlement policy is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Gaza, highlighting the relevant articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention to support the determination that settlements are a war crime, at http://www.pchrgaza.org/Intifada/Settlements.conv.htm; see also “Demolitions, new settlements in East Jerusalem could amount to war crimes – UN expert,” UN News Centre, June 29, 2010, at http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35175&Cr=Palestin&Cr1.

[5] Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court prohibits “[t]he transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Live Updates from the bus

https://twitter.com/#!/nickgilla/status/136480139352608768

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136477446206799873

https://twitter.com/#!/ZazaFL/status/136475957191114752

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136473936136380417

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136473584691462145

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136469173026029568

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136467938667528192

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136466159804489728

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136465494621429761

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136464359105892352

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136463371540238336

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136462649536950272

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136462057259270146

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136461742199930880

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136461526327504896

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136461124437680129

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136458516364931072

https://twitter.com/#!/PalestineJN/status/136439943311536129
https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136439796536057856

https://twitter.com/#!/PalestineJN/status/136439512925618177

Ziadah:Egged & Veolia [bus companies] are actively & knowingly complicit in Israeli settlement enterprise
http://t.co/3ZBjDxaN

15:41 Pal Time | Racist settlers from Brooklyn move freely between occupied Jerusalem & rest of West Bank while Palestinians caged in ghetto #FreedomRides
https://twitter.com/#!/AliAbunimah/status/136438418157731840

15:41 Pal Time | Update: All similar buses are passing without having to stop EXCEPT bus with Palestinian activsits #Freedomrides
https://twitter.com/#!/JalalAK_jojo/status/136438459010252800

15:39 Pal Time: @PalFreedomRides #FreedomRides Internationals siding with Palestinian resistance to the illegal segregation in their occupied homeland.
https://twitter.com/#!/PalestineJN/status/136438027131170816

@PalFreedomRides #FreedomRides All the posters are being held up at the checkpoint with internationals.End ColonizationFree PalestineBoycott
https://twitter.com/#!/PalestineJN/status/136437960554971137

#FreedomRides small demonstration near checkpoint with these signs- Free Palestine, End the Occupation, We Have A Dream, End Colonization
https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136437721911660544

15:37 Pal Time | @PalFreedomRides #FreedomRides DR MAZIN GAVE HIS ID TO THE ISRAELI SOLIDER AND TOLD HIM THAT HE WANTS TO GO TO JERUSALEM, TO SEE WHAT HAPPEN
https://twitter.com/#!/PalestineJN/status/136437460132569088

15:36 Pal Time | #FreedomRides border police have confiscated Palestinian IDs and are attempting to remove Riders from bus. Riders are passively refusing
https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136437370701623296

Palestinian can’t access Occupied Jerusalem because, well, they are Palestinian. #freedomrides
https://twitter.com/#!/YousefMunayyer/status/136436883382206464

15:30 Pal Time | #Freedomrider Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh: “Did u c what they did? They entered Jerusalem a few feet so that now they can charge us.” #freedomrides
https://twitter.com/#!/theIMEU/status/136435938376163328

15:30 Pal Time | the Border Police are cchecking #FreedomRiders IDs #Palestine
https://twitter.com/#!/Hurriyahz/status/136435941043744769

15:30 Pal Time | Qumsiyeh: By intentionally bringing bus a few feet into “Jerusalem,” Israel can now arrest #FreedomRides for illegal entry into city
https://twitter.com/#!/AliAbunimah/status/136435975915175938

15:29 Pal Time | On #FreedomLives live stream Mazin Qumsiyeh predicts riders will be arrested once bus passes into “forbidden area”
https://twitter.com/#!/AliAbunimah/status/136435494639771648

15:28 Pal Time | #IOF soldiers and Police just entered the #FreedomRides bus
https://twitter.com/#!/Hurriyahz/status/136435299143270400

15:25 Pal Time | #FreedomRiders #FreedomRides are on the bus new #Hizma checkpoint now #Palestine
https://twitter.com/#!/ManaraRam/status/136434538372018176

@PalFreedomRides #FreedomRides SETTLERS ON THE BUS ARE PULLING AWAY THE PALESTINIAN FLAG FROM FADI AND HUWAIDA, AND CAUSING PROBLEMS
https://twitter.com/#!/PalestineJN/status/136433214792286208

15:17 Pal Time: #FreedomRides The bus has left, army and police are following behind it!

15:15 Pal Time: #IOF stopped bus! They are not allowing #FreedomRides to head to Jerusalem! #Palestine
https://twitter.com/#!/MariamBarghouti/status/136432082401497088

15:09 Pal Time: #Freedomriders @PalFreedomRides NOTE: THIS IS BUS 148 TO JERUSALEM
https://twitter.com/#!/PalestineJN/status/136430423470374912

15:08 Pal Time: #Freedomriders @PalFreedomRides THE SETTLERS ARE ON THE BUS NOW TOO
https://twitter.com/#!/PalestineJN/status/136430191307264000

15:08 Pal Time : #FreedomRides got ON THE BUS! Press joined the activists on the bus as well! The bus is not moving yet.
https://twitter.com/#!/MariamBarghouti/status/136430128019415040

15:04 Pal Time: Huwaida Arraf one of the #FreedomRiders

15:00 Pal Time | Settlers gathering near #FreedomRides activists, as well as Israeli soldiers! Once again note, that activists are NOT armed. #Palestine

15:00 Pal Time | BREAKING: Police and IDF surrounding the area #FreedomRides is supposed to take place now
https://twitter.com/#!/ManaraRam/status/136427520475144192

14:57 Pal Time | IOF Jeep close to the #FreedomRiders

14:57 Pall Time; IOF Jeep close to the #FreedomRiders http://pic.twitter.com/ol08PzeS

https://twitter.com/#!/theIMEU/status/136427186029727745

https://twitter.com/#!/MariamBarghouti/status/136426825357344768

https://twitter.com/#!/PalFreedomRides/status/136426811478384640

15:04 Pal Time: Huwaida Arraf one of the #FreedomRiders

FreedomRides | More Pictures click here

A complete photo set by Activestills


Video of the FreedomRides in Action


Video Interview after release from prison

A brief interview, followed by the arrest of Palestinian Freedom Rider Fadi Quran, taken from the livestream of the November 15 protest. Quran was one of seven Palestinian Freedom Riders who were violently arrested while attempting to ride on segregated Israeli public transportation transporting settlers from inside the West Bank to occupied East Jerusalem in an act of civil disobedience inspired by the Freedom Riders of the U.S. civil rights movement.


In the Media

Nov 16, 2011

Nov 15, 2011

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