Caravan For Palestine

international | rights, freedoms and repression | press release Thursday May 19, 2005 23:26 by Jon Glackin - Street Seen streetseen at hotmail dot co dot uk 07743275533

A Request from Palestine...

Some of you may remember Saif and the ISM crew who were over here in Ireland a while ago. Saif got in contact with me recently to help publicise the 'Caravan for Palestine' they have planned.
He reckons it would be cool to meet up again with some of the Irish heads he met whilst here.....
July is looking more and more like a month to make a real difference......

Saif writes.....
The caravan for the human rights and international justice will leave from Strasbourg in July of the 2005 with the purpose of arriving at Jerusalem. It will cross Europe and the middle east. The objective of the caravan is to request the respect and the application of the International right.

For some months now, the Caravan for Palestine has been offering the opportunity of taking part in an international action on the basis of a fundamental and consensual claim where everyone can find their place.

It is a concrete, enjoyable and inspiring action which also assumes a significant contribution from each participant and a real desire to act together. It is a question of showing the strength of civil society when it decides to work together, to raise its head and to argue for justice and dignity in the world.

Of course, the ideal is to take a car with some friends and to travel the whole way with us. For some, that is impossible(and we won’t expect that of you).There are many who will join only part of the caravane.
They will have done their very best to take part in this international action. But no-one is expected to give everything. It is possible to belong to this project, to contribute to its success, in a thousand ways:

- By joining a "Roulotte", a local group which prepares the departure of one or more vehicles, publicising the Caravan, speaking about Palestine and about breaches of international law over the years (and will do so still more intensely during the trip in July). In this group, there are those who will be travelling, the "nomads", but also those who will remain, the "sedentaries". Those have a really significant role in July, to make ‘live’ the Caravan, everywhere. A great effort will be made to communicate along the route, so that all, sedentaries and nomads, take part in this mobilisation.

- By helping with finance: The trip has a cost and to contribute to the financing is also a way of being in the convoy... then a small part of you will make the trip, whether you gave one euro or 100, according to your means. It will be thanks to these thousands of gifts that the trip will be possible for hundreds of people.

We know that you, as an activist, are engaged in various actions, campaigns, mobilisations. We are not at all asking you to drop your activities, we encourage you on the contrary to continue each one, especially if they are benevolent ... But we invite you to find some energy for the Caravan. Thus you'll belong to this collective adventure, which searches also to be another way to fight.
Effective solidarity, sharing, confidence and all those relations which we miss so much in this dehumanized world, we must put them into practice as of today if we want them to govern the construction of these "other possible world".
Our next coordination meeting is at the 4th and 5th of june in Barcelona, for more information and registration please contact: streetseen@hotmail.co.uk

Planed Schedule:

Day 1 : Strasbourg – Geneva (July 5)
Day 2 : Geneva – Milano (6)
Day 3 : Milano – Trieste (7)
Day 4 : Trieste – Lubliana – Zagreb (8)
Day 5 : Zagreb – Belgrad (9)
Day 6 : Belgrad – Sofia (10)
Day 7 : Sofia – Istanbul (11)
Day 8 : Istanbul (12)
Day 9 : Istanbul – Ankara (13)
Day 10 : Ankara – Cappadocia (14)
Day 11 : Cappadocia – Alep (15)
Day 12 : Alep – Damas (16)
Day 13 : Damas – Amman (17)
Day 14 : Amman (18)
Day 15 : Amman - Allenby bridge - Jerusalem (19)

Email me for further details etc ..... streetseen@hotmail.co.uk