Karolin Hijazi (Aberdeen)

UPDATE: imprisoned by Israel at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.  Today on Palestinian Prisoners Day Karolin, together with French and British women detained, is refusing food in solidarity with 1200 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike protesting administrative detention.

Karolin Hijazi's family originally come from Yazur, a Palestinian village, which is now known as Azor. Azor and nearby Jaffa are just two of the many sites in Israel which were built on top of the remains of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948. After being forced from their homes in the 1948 war the family moved on to Al-Lydd in the district of Al-Ramla which was also evacuated and destroyed. Karolin (31), who is a doctor and teaches medical students at Aberdeen University, wants to join the initiative to show solidarity to the Palestinian people by taking part in the project which aims to build four new schools in Bethlehem.

Karolin has received support from local MPs Dame Anne Begg: "I would hope that this non violent act of requesting entry to Palestine is treated as such. I will be maintaining contact with my constituent to ensure safe passage during her trip" and Frank Doran: "I would ask that Ms Hijazi is allowed to pass through Tel Aviv airport without impediment so that she is able to proceed to the West Bank to take part in the educational project". Kevin Stewart MSP raised the following motion at the Scottish Parliament: "That the Parliament commends those people attempting to travel from Scotland to the West Bank as part of the Welcome to Palestine initiative...to bring attention to the fact that Palestinians have been denied visitation rights in the occupied territories...to raise awareness of the lack of freedom of movement endured by Palestinians both inside and outside of the occupied territories and to show solidarity with the Palestinian people who continue to be denied the most basic of rights".

Chair of Aberdeen Trades Union Council Brian Carroll said: "Welcome to Palestine is an important event highlighting the suffering being endured on a daily basis by those peoples living in the West Bank. It is a criminal outrage that in this day and age a modern so-called progressive state like Israel can continually break international law and commit human rights violations on a daily basis against people that wish only to have the same opportunities, lives and choices that we have. I very much hope that the efforts of Karolin and others brings the suffering of the Palestinian People to the forefront of international politics, so that their suffering is curtailed."

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Lynn Leitch (Midlothian)
UPDATE: imprisoned by Israel at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.  Today on Palestinian Prisoners Day Lynn, together with French and British women detained, is refusing food in solidarity with 1200 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike protesting administrative detention.

I am a 61 year old retired teacher and a long time socialist and trade unionist . I live in Midlothian with my husband Rob and have three children. I have been an active member of Midlothian Coalition for Justice not War since it's inception and I am standing in the local elections in May as an Anti- Cuts candidate. Some of my interests are walking, gardening, travelling and art.

I have visited the West Bank before and I have witnessed the abuse of the civil and human rights of the Palestinians. I feel that it is important for people from other countries to challenge the actions of the Israeli Authority and bring it's actions to the attention of people and Govenments around the world.

Joy Cherkaoui (Dumfries) 
UPDATE: imprisoned by Israel at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.  Today on Palestinian Prisoners Day Joy, together with French and British women detained, is refusing food in solidarity with 1200 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike protesting administrative detention.

Joy Cherkaoui has a community work background and works for Dumfries and Galloway Council in Integrated Children's Services. She has long been involved in social justice issues and has a strong interest in community engagement and participatory methodologies. Growing up in the 1970s she was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, women's rights and CND. Later she became involved in Welfare Rights and then, more recently, action against the war in Iraq , the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium and Fairtrade. Joy lives in Castle Douglas and is a member of Amnesty International and treasurer of the local branch of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign. She has one grown up son, who lives in Edinburgh.

Joy has chosen to accept the invitation to visit Palestine during this week of action as she feels that to be silent – to turn away and act as if she is unaware of the atrocities being committed by the Israeli state on a daily basis against Palestinian citizens - is to be complicit in that oppression. She took part in last year's Welcome to Palestine initiative and was detained at Givon detention centre before being deported. She is participating again this year to show her solidarity with the people of Palestine who are effectively being denied the right to have visitors in their own homes. The goal of the initiative is not to demonstrate at Ben Gurion Airport but to proceed peacefully to Bethlehem, where our Palestinian hosts are waiting to greet us. There is no way into Palestine except through Israeli-controlled Airports or checkpoints.

Paveen Yaqub (Manchester)
UPDATE: imprisoned by Israel at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.  Today on Palestinian Prisoners Day Paveen, together with French and British women detained, is refusing food in solidarity with 1200 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike protesting administrative detention.  

I am a British citizen and a Humanitarian Peace Activist.

I have been an active supporter of the Palestinian people, particularly since my participation in the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza in 2010.

When I joined the flotilla, I was working as a senior manager for local government and had spent my career serving disadvantaged and vulnerable communities in the UK. My passion for humanity took on a new dimension as a consequence of becoming increasingly disturbed and moved by the plight of the Palestinians, especially after the devastating bombing of Gaza in 2008/9 by Israeli forces.

Raising funds for Palestine was simply not enough anymore; nobody wants to endure the indignity of surviving on charitable hand-outs, and nor should they have to. The Palestinian crisis was NOT borne out of a natural disaster. Nor a tsunami, earthquake or drought is responsible for stealing Palestinian land, claiming innocent civilian lives and causing unbearable suffering. This humanitarian disaster has been created by political interests; it is man- made and strategically enforced. It can therefore be addressed; at least it can if our governments, our international community, stopped bowing to Zionist pressure and took a firm and just approach to ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Our mainstream media refuses to give ordinary people an accurate & honest understanding of the situation in Palestine, denying us a true account of the full horror of living under Israeli oppression. The Palestinian struggle is thus ignored, dismissed, or considered somebody else's problem, by most. However, as a British citizen I consider it a problem my country has played a pivotal role in creating, when it helped build the State of Israel with the blood of the Palestinians. I therefore feel a deep sense of obligation to play my part in exposing the truth; in challenging Zionist Israeli crimes against humanity; in fighting for justice, freedom and peace - in the name of every Palestinian man, woman and child.

Despite peace building efforts being hindered, sabotaged and blocked time and again by Israel, my will and belief in supporting a just cause is not diminished, rather it is reinforced! Aboard the Mavi Marmara ship, I lost brothers to the bullets of Israeli machine guns, and it was fate not mercy that allowed me to walk away with my life...and the TRUTH. In honour of every person that has sacrificed and suffered in serving the struggle, it is my pledge to share and keep sharing the truth. There is no better means of extracting such truth than directly meeting those enduring Israeli brutality every day.

For these reasons I aim to travel to meet with brothers and sisters in the West Bank as part of the 'Welcome to Palestine Campaign'. I hope to contribute to efforts exposing the inhumane conduct of the Israeli regime and to deliver a message to Palestinians of solidarity, hope and compassion.

I am honoured to serve a cause as meaningful as this and to be amongst like-minded brothers and sisters of conscience, striving for peace. I end with a favourite quote that expresses my standpoint perfectly:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does" (Margaret Mead)

Terri Mclaughlin (Glasgow)
UPDATE: imprisoned by Israel at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.  Today on Palestinian Prisoners Day Terri, together with French and British women detained, is refusing food in solidarity with 1200 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike protesting administrative detention.  

 

 

 

 

Anthony Radcliffe (Chesterfield)
UPDATE: imprisoned by Israel at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.

My name is Anthony Radcliffe and I am 69 and a retired teacher. I am married with a grown up family, and I live in Chesterfield which is a town close to Sheffield in the Midlands.

I have a wide range of interests and am a human rights activist and a member of the Socialist Workers Party. I have become more aware of human rights abuses since retirement and have become more politically active since then.

I have been very active in supporting the Palestinian cause for several years now, especially since the appauling attack on Gaza by Israel in 2009, when 1400 Palestinians were killed. Several times a week I give out out boycott Israeli gooods leaflets outside supermarkets in Derbyshire, Nottingham and Lincolnshire.

I am an active member of the Chesterfield Palestine Solidarity Campaign and I also work closely with the Sheffield PSC group. I am involved in fundraising activities supporting children's projects in Gaza and I regularly speak to local groups about the situation for Paalestinians, and the daily human rights abuses that they endure.

I feel very honoured and privileged to be involved in the Welcome to Palestine initiative.

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Jim Henry
UPDATE: imprisoned by Israel at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.

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Arif Shah (Birmingham) 
UPDATE: imprisoned by Israel at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.

My name is Arif Hussain Shah and I live and work in Birmingham (UK). I have joined the "Welcome to Palestine Initiative 2012" because of Israel's illegal and inhumane siege of the Palestinian people. I joined "Viva Palestina" (1&3) convoys to Gaza after the twenty two day war of hell that Israel threw on Palestinians.

And having seen the conditions on the ground in gaza, aswell as the continued daily bombardment of gazan's and the continued illegal Israeli siege by air, sea and land; i felt necessary to take part and join my other friends in protest. This is only because it seems that the leaders at the United Nations are deaf, blind and dumb. Because if they fulfilled their duty to humanity and to their people, and took necessary actions against Israel, we wouldn't have to leave our families behind and go out off our way to demonstrate against these barbaric Israeli crimes against all the Palestinians (humans, animals, plants, vegetation and land who also have rights under the international law).

I urge the world, in the name of humanity to apply the law equally and make Israel free the Palestinians.  Free Free PALESTINE.

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Also from the UK:

Robert Hilliere Redford (Chesterfield)
UPDATE: imprisoned by Israel at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.

Stevie Docherty (Edinburgh) - DEPORTED 15 April 2012 

Michael Rabb (US) - DEPORTED 16 April 2012  

I am 65 year-old, retired construction design engineer for communications infrastructure. Since retiring I have worked as full-time, activist for the liberation of Palestine from Boulder, Colorado USA. I grew up in Mississippi in the deep south of the USA in the 50s and 60s and saw and experienced the racism towards black citizens of Mississippi. A couple of years ago I participated in an IFPB delegation to Palestine and saw first hand the racist apartheid that Israel is doing to the Palestinians. I came back from that trip determined to do something about it. I started a local Colorado campaign to get the University of Colorado to divest from Israeli apartheid called "CU-Divest!" (https://sites.google.com/site/cudivest/). And I have engaged in other actions to directly confront (non-violently) Israel's aggressive, illegal and immoral treatment of the Palestinians. Last year on July 8, I tried to participate in the flytilla into Ben Gurion Airport but the Israeli government put me on a no-fly list and i did not make it on the airplane to Tel Aviv. So I caught a flight to Sharm El Sheikh and tried to enter Palestine through the Taba crossing but Israel refused me entry there as well. This time I hope to get into Bethlehem to see my friends in Palestine and am proud to participating in Welcome to Palestine. 

Ted McLaren (Canada)  

Ted McLaren, from Québec in Canada, has been arrested at the Ben Gurion Airport.

Ted is a delegate from the Construction Worker Federation CSN-Construction.  He has a long history of solidarity and commitment to international solidarity. For years he was  involved in the liberation struggle of the South African people against the Apartheid regime. He naturally engages himself against another apartheid situation.

UPDATE: detained at Givon detention centre, near Tel Aviv.  Today on Palestinian Prisoners Day Karolin, together with French and British women detained, is refusing food in solidarity with 1200 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike protesting administrative detention.

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