Tag Archives: resettlement

Thousands in Israel March Against ‘Fascism and Apartheid’ at Anti-Netanyahu Protests

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“We can see right now many laws being advocated for against LGBTQ, against Palestinians, against larger minorities in Israel,” said one organizer.

By Julia Conley.  Published 1-8-2023 by Common Dreams

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a roundtable dealing with Israeli foreign policy in 2017 Photo: Chatham House/flickr/CC

Carrying signs reading, “Together against fascism and apartheid” and “Democracy in danger,” thousands of Israelis on Saturday marched in protest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government, which less than a week after being sworn in has already threatened to strip the country’s judiciary of power and announced punitive measures against Palestinian people and leaders.

According to Haaretz, about 20,000 people attended two different marches—one organized by the grassroots group Standing Together and calling for equality and partnership between Palestinians and Israelis, and another focusing on Netanyahu’s threats to the Israeli justice system. Continue reading →

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Tanzania is using murder charges to get nomadic Maasai off their homelands

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Violence accompanies plans to expand a wildlife reserve at the expense of traditional grazing lands

By OpenDemocracy 50.50  Published 7-8-2022 by openDemocracy

A Maasai family near Lake Natron, Tanzania. Photo: Alex Berger/flickr/CC

Lemoloo Jr*, a Maasai activist in northern Tanzania, says he is running out of hope.

In the last month, 33 people in his community have been arrested, and 25 are now facing murder charges over the death of a police officer on 10 June.

Since the start of June, Maasai people have been protesting against government security forces sent to remove them from Loliondo in Ngorongoro district, northern Tanzania. The ancestral home and grazing lands of the Maasai, a nomadic pastoralist people, start in Kenya and stretch into this area, but the government wants to extend the nearby Ngorongoro Conservation Area and turn 1,500 square kilometres of the land into a game reserve. Continue reading →

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‘Totally Unacceptable’: US Rejecting 90% of Afghans Seeking Asylum Under Humanitarian Program

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“We don’t feel safe,” lamented one Afghan asylum-seeker whose brothers translated for U.S. invasion forces. “We don’t know what will happen in an hour. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

By Brett Wilkins  Published 6-20-2022 by Common Dreams

Seven Afghan citizens arrived in Luxembourg to start a new life – 2021. Photo: NATO/flickr/CC

As a coalition of human rights groups on Monday implored the international community to do more to help Afghan refugees, new reporting revealed that the United States is rejecting the overwhelming majority of Afghans seeking to enter the country under a humanitarian program—including relatives of those who aided the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of their country.

“Today, over six million Afghans have been driven out of their homes and their country by conflict,” the Alliance for Human Rights noted in its World Refugee Day statement. “These numbers have been exacerbated by the Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan in August 2021 and the critical humanitarian crisis Afghanistan is facing today.” Continue reading →

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EU Joins Rights Group in Condemning Israel’s ‘Day of Destruction’ of Palestinian Homes

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“Demolitions are illegal under international law and significantly undermine the prospects for peace.”

By Brett Wilkins.  Published 11-28-2021 by Common Dreams

sraeli forces use bulldozers including a U.S.-made Caterpillar to destroy Palestinian homes in illegally occupied East Jerusalem. (Photo: jenniferlisa/Flickr/cc)

The European Union on Friday joined a prominent Israeli human rights group in condemning last week’s demolition of multiple homes in occupied East Jerusalem, an illegal action that displaced 22 Palestinians including 15 children.

“We reiterate our call to halt demolitions and any other unlawful practices that coerce Palestinians out of their homes,” the European Union Delegation to the Palestinians (DPAL) tweeted. Continue reading →

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The Palestinians and the struggle of the dispossessed

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The ongoing fight of those in Palestine reveals what it means to live in struggle, to refuse defeat, to persist

By Samera Esmeir  Published 5-14-2021 by openDemocracy

Photo: Faraz Khan/Twitter

A struggle is unfolding in Palestine – the struggle of the dispossessed to guard their homes, land, and place in this world. The struggle of those who have been subjected to Zionist and Israeli depopulation and ethnic-cleansing practices since the 1948 Nakba. This is the struggle of those who survived the 1948 war of conquest and the 1967 war of occupation.

This struggle also belongs to those who became refugees within their homeland, but who were not allowed to return to their homes and villages because they were kept out by policies facilitating the Israeli takeover of their lands. This is now the struggle of yet another generation that has inherited the collective dispossession of its people, as in Haifa and Gaza, and is undergoing it again in such places as the Naqab and the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Continue reading →

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Netanyahu vs not Netanyahu: Israel’s absurd election fiasco

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The country’s leaders talk of Jerusalem as an ‘undivided capital’ Yet, half of the population is denied the right to vote

By Jalal Abukhater  Published 3-24-2021 by openDEmocracy

Photo: George Roussos/Twitter

Another general election just concluded in Israel, the fourth in two years. Beyond the clichés of ‘Groundhog Day’ or ‘election fatigue’ affecting the turnout, not many are actually talking about the utter absurdity of the whole thing.

The major election, held on 23 March 2021, which directly impacts nearly 14 million people living between the ‘river and the sea’, where over a third are denied voting rights, comes down to whether or not one man gets to remain as prime minister. Continue reading →

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Cheers as Federal Judge Blocks Trump Order Allowing Localities to Refuse New Refugees

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“This is an important first step, but this fight is far from over.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-15-2020

A march in Minneapols to show solidarity with immigrants and refugees in 2017. Photo: Fibonacci Blue/flickr/CC

 

A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a Trump administration order giving states and localities the power to refuse to resettle refugees.

“This injunction provides critical relief,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS). LIRS is one of three faith-based resettlement agencies that had sued to block the September order. “Those who have been waiting for years to reunite with their families and friends will no longer have to choose between their loved ones and the resettlement services that are so critical in their first months as new Americans,” Vignarajah said. Continue reading →

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