Press Release 6 November 2008
On the evening of Friday 7th December the SS Dignity sets sail from Cyprus to Gaza, the third boat to do so in recent months.
Scottish Friends of Palestine welcomes this development and looks forward to such voyages becoming a regular feature of bringing hope to the besieged people of Gaza. That members of civil society and concerned politicians alike are making these voyages, in the face of vocal Israeli opposition and a mute international community, simply serves to underline just how emasculated and subservient the governments of the international community have become when it comes to facing up to a brutal and intransigent occupier.
The passengers of SS Dignity include Pauline McNeill MSP (Convenor of the Scottish Parliament’s Cross Party Group on Palestine) and Hugh O’Donnell MSP.
The parliamentarians will visit hospitals and deliver a ton of medical supplies brought by the SS Dignity Hopefully they will be able to meet with many of the 700 students who have been denied the right to leave Gaza and study at universities that have already admitted them.
Dr. Arafat Shoukri of the European Campaign to End the Siege added, “We intend to deliver the medical supplies to the most vulnerable of the stricken population in the territory”. “This journey will send a strong message to the world and is a direct challenge to the Israeli siege on Gaza. We hope this trip of Parliamentarians will be one of many to follow,” said Osama Qashoo, another Free Gaza Movement organizer.
Pauline McNeill will make every effort to vists hospitals in Gaza to determine their exact needs. This will help in the planning and organising of a forthcoming relief convoy to Gaza, by Edinburgh Direct Aid, under the auspices of the Parliament’s Cross Party Group.
Contact:
Greta Berlin, Cyprus: +357 99 08 17 67
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, Jerusalem: +972 547 366 393
Huwaida Arraf: +357 96 723 999 / +970-599-130-426
Osama Qashoo: +44 78 33 38 16 60
Mary Hughes, Cyprus: +357 96 75 00 59
Scottish Friends of Palestine is a firm advocate of the total boycott of all Israeli institutions, academic and cultural bodies and Israeli products – until as such times that the Israeli state ceases to boycott the rights of the Palestinian people, and international law as it pertains to the Palestinian people.
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