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Emergency Protest in Halifax
By
Tony Seed, Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Palestine; Canada Palestine Association |
June 01, 2010
Emergency Protest - Halifax, NS
01/Jun/2010
A delegation of some 20 Haligonians supporting the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Palestine delivered the Citizens' Arrest Warrant demanding the extradition of war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to the constituency office of Halifax MP Megan Leslie and then held a half hour public informational picket outside on Gottingen Street on Tuesday, June 1st.
Two large banners: No to Israeli War Crimes! Support Gaza and the Palestinian People! War Criminal Netanyahu Not Welcome in Canada! Folks included representatives of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Public Service Alliance of Canada, Council of Canadians, Canadians, Arabs and Jews for a Just Peace, Canada Palestine Association, CPC (M-L), Islamic Association of Nova Scotia, Kairos, and NSPIRG. We further resolved, beginning Wednesday afternoon, to hold daily mass pickets / vigils.
Along with demanding that the Citizens Arrest Warrant be presented to the House of Commons, with a formal reply from the MP as to the action she had taken to represent the concerns of the constituents, the following points were made: 1. The Israeli lethal assault on the Gaze Freedom Flotilla in international waters, the Mavi Marmara massacre, was a war crime and a criminal violation of international legal norms and the United Nations Law of the Sea, in which Canada had taken a leading role in drafting. The Mediterranean Sea is not an Israeli lake. [Part VII. Referring to "freedom of navigation", Article 88 states that, "the high seas shall be reserved for peaceful purposes," and Article 89 says, "No state may validly purport to subject any part of the high seas to its sovereignty."] It is murder and piracy, pure and simple. 2. The Israeli military order for the murderous assault against the civilians appears to have issued around 7-8 p.m. Eastern time, at which point Benjamin Netanyahu was being hosted in Ottawa by the Canadian Prime Minister. No Israeli military operation takes place until it was been signed off by the highest political body of the State of Israel, and this was the case this time. Stating that it was "a premeditated operation," Mark Regev, official Netanyahu spokesman, explicitly confirmed the personal involvement of Netanyahu in an interview by CBC Newsworld, 10:40 a.m (AST) on 30 May 2010, as his justification for not accompanying Netanyahu to Canada and the United States. 3. We demand the extradition of Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes and for violating the national sovereignty of Canada, in which he was an invited guest of the Conservative government. We further demanded that the House of Commons investigate Stephen Harper and other leading officials of the Government of Canada for collusion in the planning of the Israeli war crime on Canadian soil against the Gaza peace flotilla by Benjamin Netanyahu. 3. Harper is more concerned about Israel than about the fate of Canadian nationals who were volunteering in the Gaze Freedom Flotilla. Canadians demand an independent, principled foreign policy and not pathetic statements which are a carbon copy of American "regrets" or which pretend that it is a mystery as to what happened in the early hours of June 1, 2010. We demand that Canada suspend diplomatic relations with the State of Israel and call for a national referendum on the necessity to cancel all relations with the State of Israel. We demand that the brutal blockade of Gaza be lifted and that the attacks on the Palestinian people and all those who support them be condemned. 4. Megan Leslie's assistant, Ann Marie Foote, had copies of Jack Layton's statement reproduced for distribution. (Along with the Citizen's Arrest Warrant, statements of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the Communist Party of Canada [Marxist-Leninist] were widely distributed.] 5. We thanked the office manager for her hospitality. Although not invited by the NDP, it was unconscionable that a HRM policeman was stationed inside the office for the precise duration of the delegation's visit (two representatives). Does the HRM Police think we are armed with Iranian rockets and/or kitchen knives?
CTV and Halifax Media Co-op published media reports.
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