Amnesty International

Meeting times:
First Friday of each month*
Beginning June 6, 7 PM
Location: MIX 96 Radio Station 119 Washington St. NE Olympia
(Corner of Washington and State)

All are welcome, bring some friends!

For information call 360-867-9237

*July meeting will be on the 11th due to holiday

Help fight for human rights!

Repost

Michigan State House of Representatives Passes Resolution Condemning the CCP's Persecution of and Forced Organ Harvesting from Falun Gong Practitioners.

Everyear myself and a group of local Falun Gong practitioners go to the capital and ask for this same sort of resolution. We receive a lot of support, but it never goes through.

World Medical Association Should Investigate Organ Theft Charges

http://www.fofg.org/act/act_appeal.php?a_id=5 

As mentioned in a previous post, I'll be occasionally posting writings from Will's chapbook, "This is the Life", along with the letters that Rachel Corrie sent home from Rafah.  There has been a fair bit of discussion on Olyblog about Rachel, the ISM, and the Israel/Palestine conflict in the last couple years, and I've decided it is unproductive to discuss the ISM without directly posting the writings of ISM activists.

The wells that Will mentions in the second piece here are the same (at least I'm pretty sure) as those written about by Rachel. 

Will's writings carry a "copyleft", which gives explicit permission to reproduce providing that doing so is not to make a profit.  Much of this writing can be found on this blog, where I've been slowly posting it for Will.       -Phil

BRAZIL 

After refugees were displaced to Rafah in 1948, several foreign governments aided with the construction of housing for refugees. One neighborhood of Rafah is called Brazil because the Brazilian government helped to build it.

Monsoor carries the metal brazier upstairs, walking backwards, cigarette burning down to filter in his mouth. He takes two legs, I take one. Logs burn between us, spilling the occasional coal on the tile stairs.

“Monsoor, I’m impressed!” I say.

As a result of recent speculations on Olyblog about the work of Rachel and other ISMer's in Palestine, I've decided to post writings both from Rachel as well as from Will Hewitt, who was in Rafah at the same time. 

This first letter from Rachel mentions Israeli "towers", as well as bulldozed wells.  There were, at the time (I am uncertain as to whether the towers were removed during the "withdrawal" -which really only referred to the settlements- from Gaza), actual guard/sniper towers on the ends of most of the major streets in Rafah.  These towers were very dangerous as soldiers often shot randomly into the busy streets of Rafah, frequently killing or injuring pedestrians and school children. Tom Hurndall, a UK national and ISM activist, was killed by a bullet from one of these towers not long after Rachel's death.

As well, destruction of basic Palestinian infrastructure is a common tactic for the Israeli military, a tactic often used for collective punishment of Palestinians.  Wells are a common target, and Rachel and other ISMer's have spent a good deal of time camping at Palestinian wells to protect them from the IDF.

Rachel's letters from Palestine are available on the internet and are not copyrighted.  You may download them in booklet form here.

Hi friends and family, and others,

[edit images added 2007/Dec/18:]

peace...