Caoimhe Butterly : Eyewitness report, in Galway, from the hell on earth that is Gaza

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Sunday May 24, 2009 13:13

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

Now is the time "to challenge the legitimacy of the pinstripes". Now is the time to "ante up" ?

Last Friday, after meeting with the local Muslim community, human rights activist, Caoimhe Butterly, gave a harrowing eye witness account of the horror and butchery that was visited on the defenceless people of Gaza by Israel in its recent attack at a public meeting in Galway.

Caoimhe Butterly and Nuria C.

Yesterday, after meeting with trade unionists to forge linkages, twinnings and solidarity with the beleaguered Gazans - particularly, schools and ambulance services - she joined activists in Shop Street to encourage the public to more deeply engage, to "challenge the legitimacy of the pinstripes," the suited bureaucrats and politicians, in the case of the EU and Ireland, who enable and facilitate Israel's merciless crushing of Palestinian resistance, to what journalist and writer, Jonathan Cook calls: Israel's experiments in human despair, by their unwillinness to suspend or terminate the Euro-Med Agreement that economically privileges Israel with access to EU markets, by their refusal to condemn Israel's use of flesh eating and flesh shredding weaponry on a helpless people, like fish in a barrel, with nowhere to hide, nowhere to flee - led by Germany, all the EU states recently abstained from a UN resolution condemning Israel's "massive violation" of human rights in Gaza,

To divine aspirant MEP's bona fides in the forthcoming Euro elections towards Palestine and to give them the opportunity to nail their colours to the mast, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign has put a series of 10 questions to them such as: Do you agree that Israel should remove its settlers from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.? Do you agree that Israel should comply with the ruling of the International Court of Justice and dismantle the wall? Do you agree that Israel should open its nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection? Do you agree that the EU should not “upgrade” its relations with Israel until such times as there has been significant progress in the peace process? (Full list of questions and contexts on Related Link).

A video of Caoimhe's eye witness report in the Galway Rowing Club will be posted shortly, for a video of Caoimhe's Shop Street activism in Galway yesterday, see http://www.politube.org/show/1590

Tonight, Sunday 24th May, Caoimhe will be giving her Gaza eye witness report in the Absolute Hotel, Limerick, at 7.30 PM.

Tomorrow night, she'll be doing the same in the Victoria Hotel, Patrick Street, Cork at 8:00 PM