Anarchists Against the Wall and Bil'in Popular Committee Get Human Rights Award
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
[Congratulations to AATW for this well-deserved award. (At least one
member of AATW is on the Smygo list and an occasional contributor.)--DC]
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/10304
International League for Human Rights
In the spirit of Carl von Ossietzky
The Executive Board
Berlin, October 13 2008
Press Release
Awarding of the 2008 Carl von Ossietzky Medal
The awards ceremony for this year's Carl von Ossietzky Medal will be
held on December 7, 2008 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the “Haus der
Kulturen der Welt” (the House of World Cultures), Berlin.
(The press conference will take place on December 6, 2008 at 10:00 a.m.
in the House of World Cultures.)
The Board of Trustees of the International League for Human Rights
honors two groups for their courageous dedication to human rights:
* Anarchists Against the Wall from Israel
http://www.awalls.org/about_aatw http://www.awalls.org
* Bil’in Popular Committee, Bil'in, Palestine
http://www.bilin-village.org/english/discover-bilin/
http://www.bilin-village.org/index.htm
Israeli journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery will speak as guest of
honor at the awards ceremony. He will also speak at the press conference.
Sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was
proclaimed by the United Nations' General Assembly (on December 10,
1948), the Carl von Ossietzky Medal for outstanding service in the
realization of basic and human rights has special significance.
May 4, 2008 was the 70th anniversary of the death of Nobel Peace
Prizewinner and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky, who, because of his staunch
resistance to militarism, war and racism, was taken by force to the
Sonnenburg concentration camp (located near the present-day Polish city
of Slonsk), where he was cruelly tortured. With this in mind, the
International League for Human Rights' Board of Trustees salutes two
organizations that -- with the courage of their convictions, in keeping
with Carl von Ossietzky's spirit -- struggle jointly for a common cause.
Anarchists Against the Wall and the Bil'in Popular Committee exemplify
the nonviolent resistance to the Israeli-built "Separation Wall" on
Palestinian land, as well as steadfastness in the diverse grass-root
campaigns against the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
These groups incarnate a forward-looking culture free of exclusion and
destruction, demonstrating thereby the possibility of living together in
peace and freedom.
They also consistently represent their cause on the international stage:
The Bil'in village, for example, sued two Canadian real estate companies
in Quebec's Superior Court for their part in constructing the Israeli
settlement of Modi'in -- mostly on Bil'in's land.
The two groups were founded by young activists around the same time:
* Anarchists Against the Wall was formed in 2003 to protest Israel's
construction of the Wall.
* The Bil'in Popular Committee was founded in December 2004 in reaction
to Israel's planned -- and in the meantime fully realized -- "barrier
fence" that separates the village of Bil'in from 60% of its fields and
olive groves.
The two groups owe their effectiveness to their politically independent,
self-determined, transparent and nonviolent practices. Friday
demonstrations at the barrier fence in Bil'in have been organized by the
village's popular committee every single week since 2005, leading to the
formation of a broad international network of support and protection.
The Israeli Border Police shoot tear gas, rubber- and steel-coated
bullets, and - most recently - stink bombs at the demonstrators at close
range, untroubled by causing the nonviolent protesters serious bodily
injuries.
By honoring Anarchists Against the Wall and the Bil'in Popular
Committee, the Board of Trustees of the International League for Human
Rights highlights the organizations' common conviction that helps them
surmount great obstacles and dangers in their mutual ideal of a worthy
-- and shared -- future. Their exemplary activities are -- in the age of
globalization -- of great significance for the realization of the ideals
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- well beyond
Israel/Palestine.
With his comrade Rachel Avnery, Uri Avnery will take part in the awards
ceremony where he will speak as the guest of honor. He will also speak
at the press conference. In 2001 Uri Avnery received -- along with
Rachel and the Israeli peace group, Gush Shalom -- the Stockholm
Alternative Peace Prize. He was further honored by the City of Osnabrück
with its Carl von Ossietzky Prize in 2002. Already in 1995, Uri Avnery
had received Osnabrück's Erich-Maria Remarque Prize, and in 1997, the
Aachen Peace Prize.
Internationale Liga f. Menschenrechte (ILMR) -- FIDH/AEDH Deutschland
International League for Human Rights -- FIDH/AEDH Germany
Haus der Demokratie und der Menschenrechte
Greifswalder Str. 4
Fon: ++49+30 396 2122
Fax: 396 21 47
email: vors...@ilmr.de
www: http:www.ilmr.de
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
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Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"