First Peoples, Palestine, and the Crushing of Free Speech

Monday, January 12 at 7:30pm
SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street,… Read more

Monday, January 12 at 7:30pm
SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Segal Rooms; Vancouver, BC
Facebook EVENT

Wednesday, January 14 at 5:00pm
Coach House at Green College, UBC; 6201 Cecil Green Park Road (off NW Marine Drive, opposite Chan Centre and Rose Parkade)
Facebook EVENT

A talk by Professor Steven Salaita, who is at the centre of an international protest against academic censorship.

Salaita, author of six books and many articles, was “unhired” from a tenured position in American Indian studies at the University of Illinois when donors pressured the university because of Salaita’s tweets on his personal Twitter account about the Gaza massacre this past summer.

Because this action is widely recognized as part of a broad effort to silence voices for Palestinian rights and justice, and as one incident in the long history of colonial treatment of indigenous peoples, the case has attracted international attention.

Salaita’s books will be available at this event.

Co-sponsored by:
CanPalNet
Canada-Palestine Association
Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures, SFU
BIAC (Boycott Israeli Apartheid Coalition)
UNJPPI (United Network for Justice and Peace in Palestine and Israel)
Building Bridges Vancouver
Independent Jewish Voices – Vancouver
Institute for the Humanities, SFU
SFU English Department
SPHR-UBC (Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights)
Critical Race and Postcolonial Feminist Theory Group-UBC
Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church-Vancouver

“Steven Salaita & Academic Censorship“: an interview on Voice of Palestine

Launch of Nahla Abdo’s new book, Captive Revolution

Friday, January 9, 2015
6:30 PM – 9 PM
Room 7000, Simon Fraser University … Read more

Friday, January 9, 2015
6:30 PM – 9 PM
Room 7000, Simon Fraser University Harbour Center
515 West Hastings, Vancouver, BC

Captive Revolution: Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle Within the Israeli Prison System

Sponsored by SFU Anthropology and Sociology Departments, Independent Jewish Voices and rabble.ca

Endorsed by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign, Red Sparks Union, Canada Palestine Association, Voice of Palestine

Women throughout the world have always played their part in struggles against colonialism, imperialism and other forms of oppression. However, there are hardly any academic books on Arab political prisoners, fewer still on the Palestinians who have been detained in their thousands for their political activism and resistance.

Nahla Abdo’s Captive Revolution seeks to break the silence on Palestinian women political detainees, providing a vital contribution to research on women, revolutions, national liberation and anti-colonial resistance. Based on the stories of the women themselves, Abdo draws on a wealth of oral history and primary research in order to analyse Palestinian women’s anti-colonial struggle, their agency and their treatment as political detainees.

Making crucial comparisons with the experiences of women political detainees in other conflicts, and emphasising the vital role Palestinian political culture and memorialisation of the ‘Nakba’ have had on their resilience and resistance, Captive Revolution is a rich and revealing addition to our knowledge of this little-studied phenomenon.

‘With Captive Revolution, Nahla Abdo reveals just how much of the history of anti-imperialist struggles is absent when women — especially Palestinian women freedom fighters — are overlooked. In the process of reconstructing this history through testimonies of Palestinian women political detainees, Abdo offers us incisive critiques of orientalist feminisms and of the persistence of racism in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.’ — ANGELA DAVIS, Distinguished Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz

Nahla Abdo is an Arab feminist activist and Professor of Sociology at Carleton University. She has published extensively on women, racism, nationalism, and the State in the Middle East, with a special focus on Palestinian women. Captive Revolution seeks to break the silence on Palestinian women political detainees, providing a vital contribution to research on women, revolution, national liberation and anti-colonial resistance.

Check out Voice of Palestine interview with Nahla Abdo

Facebook Event

Support the Defense Fund for Tamam al Zobaidi and her Family

Update Oct/2015:

Eight months ago, Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver… Read more

Update Oct/2015:

Eight months ago, Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver started the Tamam Defense Fund to help Tamam and Kenza al Zobaidi challenge Israel’s arbitrary denial of their legitimate Jerusalem residency rights. The response of supporters across Canada has been heartening; your support not only helped the family meet the financial costs for the legal process, but also let them know that they are not alone and that many people are committed to standing up to Israel’s outrageous policies that can render a family stateless and status-less.

The current escalating Israeli repression in Palestine, particularly in East Jerusalem, highlights the vulnerability of Palestinians under occupation but also shows Palestinians’ determination to hold onto and cherish their birthright, their heritage and their homeland. The case of Tamam and Kenza has now gone to the next stage in the Israeli legal system, as the Israeli tribunal judge upheld the original Ministry of Interior decision and even ordered the family to pay an extra penalty. They must now spend further time and money in appealing all of this to the Israeli district court, which is both expensive and stressful (the appeal to the district court will cost around $10,000).

We know that your political and financial support has been pivotal in helping to keep this case moving forward and we are asking all friends and supporters to continue with publicizing and donating to this campaign. Please also approach any groups you are part of and ask them to consider making a donation and highlighting the case on their websites and social media. We have been able to raise over $5000 towards the family’s legal fees so far, but more is needed; $4200.00 was already forwarded to the family and over $1300 is currently in our Crowdfunding account. Together we can continue to challenge Israeli ethnic cleansing and finally put a stop to these cruel measures that divide families, separate parents from children and ultimately have the goal of making daily life impossible for Palestinian Jerusalemites.

Please donate generously to this fund which will go towards the al Zobaidis’ legal expenses, and make your checks payable to:
Canada Palestine Association
(write in the Memo: Tamam Defense Fund)
and mail to:
CPA
c/o BC Market
930 12th St., New Westminster, B.C., V3M 4K6

Cheques can also be dropped at BC Market address
Or Donate online

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Canada Palestine Association (CPA)-Vancouver is starting a Defense Fund for Tamam and Kenza al Zobaidi (mother and daughter), who were denied their legitimate residency status in Jerusalem by the Israeli occupation authorities and accordingly their birthright. Also, Tamam has now “become, essentially, stateless, and risked falling out of ‘legal’ status in Canada, which would render her unable to work, receive health care or enroll her child…in school” (Electronic Intifada, Oct. 6, 2014). Sobhi and Tamam al Zobaidi are well-known in the Vancouver Palestinian and progressive community and their friends are shocked by this development.

East Jerusalem is recognized by all countries in the world including Canada as illegally occupied territory; in spite of this, Israel continues to act as the rightful owner of Jerusalem against all international humanitarian laws, UN resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel continues with its settler colonialist policy and ethnically cleansing Palestinians from their historic homeland.

Please donate generously to this fund which will go towards the al Zobaidis’ legal expenses, and make your checks payable to:
Canada Palestine Association
(write in the Memo: Tamam Defense Fund)
and mail to:
CPA
c/o BC Market
930 12th St., New Westminster,
B. C., V3M 4K6

Cheques can also be dropped at BC Market address
Or Donate online

For more information on these racist policies towards the indigenous Palestinian people of Jerusalem (both Christians and Muslims), see the report from the Israeli Human Rights group B’Tselem:
Revocation of Residency in East Jerusalem
And the report by the Society of St. Yves, Catholic Center for Human Rights, Jerusalem.
The legal status of Palestinians in Jerusalem

BDS VANCOUVER Coast Salish Territories

BDS VANCOUVER
Coast Salish Territories
(Sub-Committee of Canada Palestine… Read more

BDS VANCOUVER
Coast Salish Territories
(Sub-Committee of Canada Palestine Association-Vancouver)

Basis of Unity

a. Endorsing the Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS objectives:
“These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194” – See more at: http://www.bdsmovement.net

b. Regardless of its national and/or geographic location, any company, organization or institution that is empowering Israeli war crimes, ethnic cleansing and Apartheid is complicit in them, and accordingly is subject to the economic and cultural boycott call.

c. We believe in the universality of human rights, and that the injustices that befell the Palestinian people should be rectified.

Organizational Structure

The committee will operate as a collective, with all decisions being made democratically, by majority vote.
• Membership is open to individuals who subscribe to, and actively work to promote, the committee basis of unity; and who pay CPA membership dues ($15 a year).
• Applications for new membership will be ratified by the committee collective, by majority vote.
• Members are entitled to attend CPA regular meetings if they choose to do so.

For more info, or to become involved with the committee, please email us at: cpavancouver@gmail.com