Montreal, March 2012 | Statement supporting the Syrian movement for dignity and self-determination and opposing militarization of the struggle and foreign military intervention.

Photo: Syrian refugees protest during a demonstration against Bashar el-Assad at Reyhanli refugee camp in Antakya, on March 15, 2012.

The Syrian people continue to demand their rights and liberties and the end of the al-Assad regime. The Syrian state has responded with brutal repression.

Since the uprising began, the Syrian regime’s propaganda machine has labelled those calling for freedom and justice “criminals”, “terrorists” and religious fanatics. It has also claimed that they are foreign agents with a mission to install a puppet regime that would abandon regional resistance movements and sign a peace agreement with Israel.

In truth, Syrians are engaged in a legitimate struggle to change an untenable local reality: a brutal authoritarian state that has governed through intimidation, fear and repression for 40 years; a security apparatus that arrests and detains citizens arbitrarily and that subjects them to torture and other abuse with impunity; increasing impoverishment, unemployment, income and wealth disparity and uncertainty about the future due to neo-liberal economic policies in recent decades.

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photo essay via Heri Rakotomalala

Photo Ensemble Acalanto performs at Artists Against Apartheid.

View beautiful photographs from the eighteenth Artists Against Apartheid concert in Montreal via Heri Rakotomalala.

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featuring NYC hip-hop collective Rebel Diaz, at Israeli Apartheid Week 2012

Sunday, March 11, 2012
doors 20h, $10 in advance | $12 at door
O Patro Vys
356 avenue du Mont-Royal est
Montreal, Quebec
facebook event

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speaker: Bassam Haddad an event within Israeli Apartheid Week 2012 in Montreal

Monday, March 12

6:30pm, Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve West, H – 763
(Guy-Concordia metro)
facebook event

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Tadamon! statement by Freda Guttman for International Women’s Day protest.

Photo: Palestinian women protest at border crossing in Rafah, Gaza Strip.

This International Women’s Day, we recognize the struggles of Palestinian women in their fight against an entrenched system of discrimination and segregation. Khitam Saafin, chair woman of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees describes the challenges that Palestinian women face.

“The first challenge is the occupation itself. The occupation is a crime as are its policies and strategies against our people – arresting of people, confiscation of land, taking of water sources, the checkpoints and other means of restricting our movement, the siege of Gaza – all these are considered to be crimes against humanity in violation of International laws. The burden of massive oppression in any society, as we know, falls on the shoulders of women.

The second challenge is the traditional society which is still considered an obstacle towards full equality, dealing with woman as equal people in Palestinian society. We know that this social challenge is a global challenge for women, even in countries which have secular or more equal laws, based on a historical discrimination against women.”

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A Discussion with Egyptian journalist and activist Deena Gamil also featuring musical performances. In conjunction with Israeli Apartheid Week Montreal 2012

photo Tahrir Square nighttime revolutionary protest via Hossam el-Hamalawy

Saturday March 10, 2012
3-4:45pm
Café l’Artère
7000, Avenue du Parc
Montréal, Québec
facebook event

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Tadamon! Collective 2012. More Dishonest Rhetoric from Honest Reporting Canada

Photo A protester flies the Palestinian flag at the start of the regular protest n the village of Nil’in to demonstrate against land confiscation and the separation wall.

In a recent piece entitled “The Apartheid Myth: HRC Responds to Tadamon!”, Honest Reporting Canada (HRC) took issue with a letter written by Jewish members of the Tadamon! collective. HRC’s principal contention is that the letter (“Don’t Conflate Judaism with Zionism,” Wednesday, January 12, 2012) in the McGill Daily “recycled the tired Israeli Apartheid canard” while putting forth compensatory rhetorical arguments that “lack[ed] in substance.”

This disingenuous tactic of dismissing factual arguments critical of Israel as “canards,” so as to avoid the responsibility of earnestly responding to their content, is both cowardly and insincere. While Tadamon! offered specific examples of several Israeli laws and policies (out of the thirty or so) that discriminate against Palestinians, HRC offered no comment on these legal instruments of apartheid. Furthermore, HRC’s response is filled with inaccuracies and dubious statistics, most of which are themselves “recycled” from questionable sources.

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video screening 05/03 via Cinema Politica for Israeli Apartheid Week 2012 in Montreal.

music video by Shadia Mansour filmed in occupied Palestine “Al Kufiyyeh 3arabeyyeh”

Official music video for the single “Al Kufiyyeh 3arabeyyeh” (The Kufiyeh is Arab) by celebrated Palestinian hip-hop artist Shadia Mansour, featuring M1 of Dead Prez. Video shot and edited by Nana Dankwa.

For Israeli Apartheid Week 2012 this video will show at the Cinema Politica screening of Tears of Gaza. Disturbing, powerful and emotionally devastating, Tears of Gaza is less a conventional documentary than a record – presented with minimal gloss – of the 2008 to 2009 bombing of Gaza by the Israeli military. Photographed by several Palestinian cameramen both during and after the offensive, this powerful film by director Vibeke Løkkeberg focuses on the impact of the attacks on the civilian population.

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toward Women of diverse origins — Femmes de diverses origines 2012 actions/events

Palestinian women prisoner being released, Ramallah, Palestine 2/10/2009. ActiveStills

Thursday, March 1
11h-12h at 90.3fm in Montreal
globally at http://www.ckut.ca/

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statement via Students Against Israeli Apartheid – Regina

Photo: Palestinian refugee youth in Aida refugee camp in the West Bank, Palestine.

Students Against Israeli Apartheid – Regina (SAIA) is pleased to announce that a motion was passed at the University of Regina Student Union AGM to support the Palestinian call for boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) as a means of pressuring Israel to comply with international and human rights law. This resolution is a huge first step towards the full divestment of the University of Regina from companies complicit with the human rights violations currently taking place in Palestine.

Plans are already in motion for SAIA, together with the University of Regina Student Union (URSU) and other members of the community, to begin investigating URSU’s portfolio for companies that support or profit from Israeli war crimes, as well as collectively launching an education campaign on campus about the issue.

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