Setting Up -- Dine' CARE Peoples Convention June 1 -- 3, 2018

The canopy going up today for Dine' CARE's Peoples Convention
Photo by Brenda Norrell

Dine' Citizens Against Ruining our Environment
Peoples Convention
Begins Friday noon with registration and camping set up. Speakers
at 4:30 p.m.
Full day of great speakers Saturday, and again on Sunday.
June 1 -- 3, 2018
Dilkon Fairgrounds, Navajo Nation

Govinda, Spirit Resistance Radio, setting up to broadcast from
Dine' CARE's Peoples Convention. Govinda sharing the
radio info with youths today.
Live broadcast is ready to begin on Friday, we'll post the time Friday.
Photo Brenda Norrell

Please see updated schedule and list of speakers.
https://www.facebook.com/events/244986232909567/permalink/244997286241795/

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Yá’át’ééh! This year marks Diné CARE’s 30th anniversary! Since 1988 we’ve been working hard to protect the health of Diné lands and people; prevent resource exploitation projects that harm us; and promote wise, sustainable, and culturally sound community development in tune with Diné values. We are committed to Indigenous organizing strategies that develop healthy, safe and economically sustainable communities. 

This June, we will be hosting: The People’s Conventions: Working Together for the Health of the Land and People. There will be two conventions- a western agency and eastern agency convention- that will be made up of workshops, presentations and activities designed to strengthen Diné community advocacy, awareness, networking and action. You are invited to participate in either or both events.

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Join Spirit Resistance Radio and Censored News at Hopi Cultural Center for Coffee and Talk Today

Join Spirit Resistance Radio and Censored News at Hopi Cultural Center for Coffee and Talk Today, Thursday, May 31, 2018

Govinda and I are at Hopi Cultural Center Restaurant, and would like to invite others to join us for coffee and talk, for Spirit Resistance Radio and Censored News this morning, and until noon, Thursday. We're preparing to broadcast and report live from Dine' CARE's Peoples Convention. Join us in the restaurant, and message us on Facebook if you don't see us. -- Brenda (Photo by Hopi Cultural Center.)

Spirit Resistance Radio and Censored News have no advertising or grants. Donations help cover our travel and equipment costs. We haven't received any donations for this week's  broadcasts.
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2017/09/donate-to-censored-news-celebrate-with.html

Searching for a Signal: Spirit Resistance Radio on Dineh and Hopi Lands

Found the Connection, Searching for a Signal, Dilkon

Spirit Resistance Radio on Dineh and Hopi Lands

(Photo above) Govinda searching for a signal for Spirit Resistance Radio at Dilkon

on the Navajo Nation, as we prepare to broadcast live Dine'

CARE's Peoples Convention and 30 Year Anniversary.

Wonderful to back in the Homelands!

Dilkon, Navajo Nation

Dilkon, Navajo Nation

Outside Dilkon Chapter House today.

Photos by Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Please join us Friday through Sunday, June 1 -- 3, 2018, as we share the voices of the people at Dine' CARE's People Convention in Dilkon.
Schedule: https://www.facebook.com/events/244986232909567/
Convention begins with registration and setting up camps on Friday at noon, with speakers at 4 pm.
Full day of great speakers all day Saturday, and on Sunday morning.

Today we are also on the Hopi Nation as well. We are not taking photos on Hopiland, out of respect for Hopi law.

Censored News and Spirit Resistance Radio have no advertising or grants. Small donations help cover our travel costs:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2017/09/donate-to-censored-news-celebrate-with.html

Hweeldi: Considering the Wisdom and Treaty at Shiprock

Navajo Treaty 1868

Hweeldi: Considering the Wisdom and Treaty at Shiprock

By Duane Chili Yazzie
Censored News

To the Editor:
As the survivors of Hweeldi, Ft. Sumner (internment site for Dine' and Mescalero Apaches during the 1860's) were leaving Hweeldi, the place of sorrow and suffering, they warned to not look back or go back to that terrible place. There are many of us who find it necessary and appropriate to respect and honor those words of advice and admonishment. In keeping with this there will be an observance on June 1, 2018, at the Shiprock chapter house starting at 11 a.m.
There will be stories of our time as prisoners of war at Hweeldi. We will consider the Treaty as a document in today's circumstances. Finally we will consider a Declaration of Dine' Identity, a draft copy of which is attached. The purpose will be to have the people understand the proposed Declaration, ask the attendees to approve the document and have whoever wants to sign the Declaration to sign. all are invited. 
Read Declaration:
Declaration of Dine' Identity

Declaration of Dine' Identity, Submission by Chili Yazzie

DECLARATION OF DINÉ IDENTITY

Submitted by Chili Yazzie, Dineh

Censored News

We, the Diné People across Earth Mother declare this statement of Diné Identity In our creation, the Great Creator made us Diyin Nohookáá Diné with our songs, language, cultural ways and identity in our homelands on this our Earth Mother.

1. As Diné People, we are indigenous to these lands, our relationship with the land is intrinsic and sacred; to separate us from the land is loss of spirit and living.
2. We honored our original instructions and lived our lifeways through hardship and times of happiness, a life of balance with nature; until the great intrusion.
3. Under the vile banners of the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny, the newcomers imposed upon us a foreign and contradicting way of life purpose.
4. The time of war between our indigenous world and the newcomers ended with our imprisonment at Hweeldí. We fought to defend our lifeways and our land.
5. After years of captivity we were freed to come home within our four mountains upon X-ing the Treaty of 1868 written by bilagaana through bilagaana eyes.
6. The Treaty did not establish nor create our sovereign status; the Treaty only confirmed the sovereignty bestowed us by the Creator. This truth must prevail.
7. The Treaty was not done in full good faith, as it was imposed on us under great duress, we did not fully understand its intent. We only wanted to come home.
8. The Treaty said we will not bear arms, but our Diné Warriors served in greater ethnic ratio in America’s military with courage and honor; defending the land.
9. We’ve adopted and adapted in our 2 worlds for 150 years. And still we cherish and celebrate our Dinéness; the Creator did not err in making us who we are.
10. We revere these lands blessed to us. The notion that our land belongs to the government, that we are its wards contravenes the Creator’s original intent.
11. We declare we will remain Diné in perpetuity and we declare that we belong to the land and that the land belong to us in the way the Great Creator intended.  

U.S. lost 1,500 migrant children, repeating horror of stolen Native American children

Vice.com "Trump's inhumane border policies are tearing families apart and traumatizing children."
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43539q/what-separating-migrant-families-at-the-border-actually-looks-like

U.S. lost 1,500 migrant children, repeating horror of stolen Native American children

Article by Brenda Norrell
Censored News

The New York Times reports that the Department of Health and Human Services told members of Congress on Thursday that the agency "had lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children it placed with sponsors in the United States, raising concerns they could end up in the hands of human traffickers or be used as laborers by people posing as relatives."
Native Americans point out that this horrific abuse follows the pattern of the United States stealing Native children.
Linda Black Elk said, "Native people know what it is like to have their children stolen. Thousands of Native children were taken to boarding schools and never heard from again. Many of them now lay in unmarked graves outside the walls of Carlisle, Anadarko, Cantonment, Chilocco, and so many other institutions. Imagine the babies who were stolen off their streets and taken thousands of miles away, where they contracted severe illnesses or were abused to the point of death. "What were they thinking as they were dying? "Were they wondering where their parents were?
"Is that what happened to the 1,500 Indigenous immigrant children that were 'lost' by the United States government? What kinds of horrors did they experience at the hands of sex traffickers, rapists, pedophiles, and abusers? How many of them cried for their mothers? "How many of them are still alive?
"Why is this still happening?" asks Black Elk, who is well remembered at Standing Rock Water Protectors Healing and Medic Tent and continues to share knowledge about healing plants.
Standing Rock Water Protectors point out that even the metal cages imprisoning migrant children, shown above, are the same inhumane, degrading cages Native Americans were imprisoned in at Standing Rock, when they were arrested praying for the water, as Dakota Access Pipeline tore through their ancestral lands.
New York Times reports that Steven Wagner, the acting assistant secretary of the agency’s Administration for Children and Families, disclosed during testimony before a Senate homeland security subcommittee that the agency had learned of the missing children after placing calls to the people who took responsibility for them when they were released from government custody.

"The children were taken into government care after they showed up alone at the Southwest border. Most of the children are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and were fleeing drug cartels, gang violence and domestic abuse, government data shows."

The Trump administration is now seizing migrants children at the border.

The Washington Post reports that this is torture.

"In two speeches last week in the border states of Arizona and California, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that as a matter of enforcement, if an unauthorized migrant brings a child across the United States-Mexico border without documentation, “we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.," writes Jaana Juvonen and Jennifer Silvers.

Read article: 'Separating children from their parents is not just cruel. It is torture.'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/05/15/separating-children-from-parents-at-the-border-isnt-just-cruel-its-torture/?utm_term=.1e4b1c80394b

The horrific testimony exposing the United States reckless handking of migrant children came one day after a Mayan woman hiding in the bushes was shot in the head and executed by the U.S. Border Patrol on the Texas border.

The Guardian reports, "A Guatemalan woman shot dead by a border patrol agent in Texas has been named as Claudia Patricia Gómez Gonzáles by local media outlets which reported that she travelled to the US in the hope of finding work to pay for her education.

"Gómez, a 20-year-old Maya-Mam indigenous woman, died on Wednesday after she was shot in the head by an agent in the border town Rio Bravo,Texas.

Read Claudia's story, say her name:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/25/woman-shot-dead-border-patrol-rio-bravo-texas-identified?CMP=fb_us

                                                                     Migrant Children

New York Times article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/politics/migrant-children-missing.html

Notes:

The snakes on the border have been profiting from migrant misery for a long time. The buses to transport detainees on the Arizona border were operated by Wackenhut, who also had a security contract for Peabody Coal on Big Mountain. Wackenhut split into two companies for maximum profiteering from misery and abuse. Wackenhut Transportation was acquired by G4S in London, and GEO became one of the notorious private prison contractors in the Southwest. The Israeli defense contractor carrying out Apartheid in Palestine, Elbit Systems, was given the U.S. contract for the spy towers, integrated fixed towers, now targeting traditional communities on the Tohono O'odham Nation. G4S in London still has the transporation contract. 
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Photo Wackenhut bus, with US Border contact, waiting to load up migrants on the Arizona border, next to Tohono O'odham Nation at Three Points. Photo copyright Brenda Norrell 2007.

On this same day, when temperatures were over 112, and we had no air conditioning, we drove around the border, and documented the US Border Patrol agents sitting in their air conditioned vehicles, talking on their cell phones most of the time, throwing their Starbucks cups on the ground, spending a lot of time at the Three Points store buying snacks, and driving too fast in the fragile desert tearing up the earth. We also saw some frightening men in regular clothes with out-of-state licenses with hunting rifles patrolling the border on a migrant trail near Arivaca. We photographed the first set of spy towers, which did not work, Border Patrol says, and that was a billion dollar boondoggle, money in the pockets of Boeing. The bus, operated by the snakes, was lurking there at the Three Points store.

Mayan Woman Murdered by US Border Patrol on Texas Border

An eye witness said Claudia was hiding in the bushes when she was shot in the head and executed by a US Border agent.

Aljazeera reports:

Immigrant rights groups across the United States have condemned the killing of a young unarmed Guatemalan woman who was shot by a border patrol agent in Texas.

The woman, identified as 20-year-old Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzales, was shot in the head by a Customs Border Police (CBP) agent on Wednesday in Rio Bravo, Texas, close to the border with Mexico.

According to local media, quoting Gonzales' family, the young woman was travelling to the US from a small village in Guatemala to find work to pay for her education.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/indigenous-guatemalan-woman-shot-dead-border-patrol-180526081614753.html

Mohawk Nation News 'Chucky Face of America'

CHUCKY FACE OF AMERICA

Posted on May 27, 2018

Please post & distribute. 

MNN. May 27, 2018. Chucky, the Killer Doll, was asked, “Why do you kill?” He answered, “It’s a hobby. It helps me to relax”. She asked, “Am I going to be a killer?” Chucky answered, “Of course! It’s been a family tradition for generations.” She asked, “But violence is bad. Isn’t it? We have a problem with killing.”  Chucky commented, “We don’t have a problem with killing. I like a little killing now and then. What’s wrong with that? Killing is an addiction like any other drug.” Question, “Chucky, quit right now. Go cold turkey!” Chucky replies, “You have got to be kidding!” Read article:

http://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2018/05/27/chucky-face-of-america/  

The Cage on Tohono O'odham Nation -- U.S. 'Dog Kennels' Imprison Migrants and Water Protectors

Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, March 22, 2006, south of Sells on Tohono O'odham Nation.

Cages used to imprison migrants and water protectors in the United States

Article by Brenda Norrell
Photo by Ofelia Rivas
Censored News

This photo is of The Cage, the sweltering inhumane outside detention center used by the US Border Patrol on the Tohono O'odham Nation in the Sonoran Desert, where temperatures can surpass 115 degrees in summer.
When Mohawks came here in 2007, they were joined by Lenny Foster, Dineh, who said this was no more than a "dog cage."
This cage was not operating the last time we were there, but these cages are still used, to cage migrants, as they were used by Morton County, North Dakota, Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier to cage Standing Rock Water Protectors who were jailed for praying for the water.
The Mohawk Warriors found it hard to believe that the Tohono O'odham tribal government allowed the US Border Patrol to be present on their land, and to carry out horrific abuses against migrants and Tohono O'odham.
Today, the cages are used in private prisons to cage migrants, including children, and the US Border Patrol is considered an "occupying army" by many O'odham, as agents carry out horrific abuses on the Tohono O'odham Nation.


Photo copyright Ofelia Rivas, O'odham
Article copyright Brenda Norrell

ACLU: U.S. Border Patrol engaged in pervasive abuse of migrant children

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NEW REPORT IS BASED ON THOUSANDS OF GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS OBTAINED THROUGH THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT THAT DETAIL HORRIFIC STORIES MAY 22, 2018 WASHINGTON — 

BY ACLU
Censored News

Documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union featured in a new report released today show the pervasive abuse and neglect of unaccompanied immigrant children detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The report was produced in conjunction with the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “These documents provide a glimpse into a federal immigration enforcement system marked by brutality and lawlessness,” said Mitra Ebadolahi, ACLU Border Litigation Project staff attorney. 
“All human beings deserve to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of their immigration status — and children, in particular, deserve special protection. The misconduct demonstrated in these records is breathtaking, as is the government’s complete failure to hold officials who abuse their power accountable. The abuse that takes place by government officials is reprehensible and un-American.” The report is based on over 30,000 pages of documents dated between 2009 and 2014. The documents were obtained by the ACLU Foundation of San Diego and Imperial Counties and the ACLU Foundation of Arizona through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit co-counseled with Cooley LLP. The documents feature numerous cases of shocking violence and abuse against migrant children, many of whom arrived in the United States fleeing violence in their home countries. “The students reviewing these records were shocked by the abuse and neglect these children were subjected to at the hands of U.S. officials.
The fact that these children were already so vulnerable — most traveling alone in hopes of escaping violence and poverty in their home countries — made the unlawful and inhumane actions reflected in the documents even more distressing,” said Claudia Flores, faculty director of the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School.
Law students in the International Human Rights Clinic examined a subset of the records obtained.
The documents show numerous cases involving federal officials’ verbal, physical and sexual abuse of migrant children; the denial of clean drinking water and adequate food; failure to provide necessary medical care; detention in freezing, unsanitary facilities; and other violations of federal law and policy and international law. 
The documents provide evidence that U.S. officials were aware of these abuses as they occurred, but failed to properly investigate, much less to remedy, these abuses.
Examples of the documented abuses include allegations that CBP officials: Punched a child’s head three times Kicked a child in the ribs Used a stun gun on a boy, causing him to fall to the ground, shaking, with his eyes rolling back in his head Ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then punched him several times Verbally abused detained children, calling them dogs and “other ugly things” Denied detained children permission to stand or move freely for days and threatened children who stood up with transfer to solitary confinement in a small, freezing room Denied a pregnant minor medical attention when she reported pain, which preceded a stillbirth Subjected a 16-year-old girl to a search in which they “forcefully spread her legs and touched her private parts so hard that she screamed” Left a 4-pound premature baby and her minor mother in an overcrowded and dirty cell full of sick people, against medical advice Threw out a child’s birth certificate and threatened him with sexual abuse by an adult male detainee.
The report also shows evidence of CBP holding migrant children in excess of the 72-hour maximum period permitted by law, as well as officials’ efforts to deport children without due process and via coercion.
“It’s terrifying to think that the horrible abuses described in these documents can continue and perhaps worsen under the Trump administration,” said Astrid Dominguez, director of the ACLU Border Rights Center.
“It’s unacceptable that there are no mechanisms in place to shed light on CBP’s abuses and ensure accountability.”
The report provides an overview of key trends that converged to create a crisis of migrant child abuse in CBP custody, the largest federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The documents obtained from the government show no evidence that any of the abuses detailed therein were ever meaningfully investigated, much less that the officials responsible were held accountable. The ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties launched a new website which includes the CRCL documents, and a timeline of the Border Litigation Project’s efforts to obtain these crucial documents from the government over the past four years.
Certain personally identifying information — such as the names of government officials, migrant children, and other third parties — has been withheld from the records released in response to the ACLU’s FOIA request and subsequent litigation. More information on the report and documents is available here: https://www.aclusandiego.org/civil-rights-civil-liberties/

VIDEO -- Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegation Confronts Credit Suisse at Shareholder Meeting

Watch this powerful video as the Indigenous Women's Delegation demands answers from Credit Suisse, and holds it responsible for financing the disastrous fossil fuel industries in their homelands.
Watch Video at:
https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/videos/2139723286056243/
Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegation Confronts Credit Suisse at Shareholder Meeting 

"The decisions you make as Credit Suisse and the Swiss people effect those of us downstream from your actions. You sit here comfortably in your privilege, while our communities bear the risks of your investments with our very health, our lives - we face a future without clean water, as you reap your dividends and returns. To us, water is life, to all of us." - Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle

Indigenous women and their allies are rising in action to divest funds from banks and fossil fuel companies endangering Indigenous peoples, human rights, climate, and water. They are advocating against unwanted extractive development and demanding adherence to international Indigenous rights and human rights standards and norms.

The third Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegation To Europe traveled to Germany and Switzerland, engaging in high-level meetings with officials from UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and the Swiss government; holding a public education event in Zurich; participating in a direct action outside bank headquarters; and presenting powerful testimony at the Credit Suisse annual shareholder meeting.

International allies are called upon to demand Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank stop funding the companies violating Indigenous rights and destroying the climate! Continued action from people across the U.S. pushing for their Tribal Nations, cities, schools, friends, and families to divest from U.S. based fossil fuel funders also remains imperative!

Featuring Delegates - Charlene Aleck (Elected councillor for Tsleil Waututh Nation, Sacred Trust Initiative, Canada); Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle (Oglala Lakota and Mdewakantonwan Dakota pediatrician, living and working on the Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota); Wasté Win Yellowlodge Young (Ihunktowanna/ Hunkpapa of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Former Tribal Historic Preservation Officer); Monique Verdin (Member of South Louisiana's United Houma Nation Tribal Council and the Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative); and Michelle Cook (Diné/Navajo, human rights lawyer, Founder and Co-Director of the Divest, Invest, Protect campaign, and Delegation Co-Organizer) - along with Osprey Orielle Lake (WECAN Executive Director, Co-Director of the Divest, Invest, Protect campaign and Delegation Co-Organizer), and Swiss women leaders.

Read the latest Delegation press release here: bit.ly/2KzN4xu

Learn more about ongoing work of Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations here: wecaninternational.org/…/divest-invest-…

The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network is honored to participate in this vital work.

Follow and support ongoing pipeline struggles including: L'eau Est La Vie Camp - No Bayou Bridge - No Bayou Bridge Solidarity Campaign - Camp White Pine - Three Sisters Resistance Camp - Makwa Initiative - Line 3 Frontline Resistance - Tiny House Warriors

On the Vanguard -- Lisa DeVille 'Zinke Visit to North Dakota'

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US Secretary Visit to North Dakota

By Lisa DeVille, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara
Censored News

Members of POWER requested to have a meeting with Secretary Zinke while he was here in ND. We also requested that allotted landowners have an opportunity to voice our concerns because of the federal government has stated that they want to work with tribes on rights of way for development. Will landowners have that right to have a say about what happens to OUR land? 

I am very concerned about the precedent being set by our tribal business council; we have millions of dollars from oil and gas development (even though we've been drastically under paid for our leases.) Because of this the federal government has taken special interest in exploiting our lands and natural resources, is our business council is allowing it to happen? Federal government should acknowledge the government to government relationship to all tribes not smile in our faces while their hands are in our pockets.

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We've forgotten our roots as the people of Nueta, Hidatsa, Sahnish nations, we need to remember that we have other people in these lands that are our relatives; the Lakota, Dakota, Chippewa. We are all northern plains tribes that survived from the river that runs through our ancestral lands. But we have few people making the calls on how the water is being pillaged and ​our families and communities are being left behind as few people prosper at the cost of our health.

Our elected representatives must take into account that the Department of the Interior must protect the trust responsibility of all tribal citizens, not just MHA interest. It is only now, in this new industrialized age for Indian Country that the government is willing to give us a seat at the table because they see that we have lands that is sitting on top of one of the biggest oil reserves in this continent. Our representatives need to remember what history has shown us, we cannot trust takers. They will continue to lie to our people to get what they want. This election season, I ask that the citizens of MHA Nation keep a close eye on who is willing to bend over backwards for the takers and who is actually here to protect our people, land, water, and air.

Freedom Flotilla to Gaza nearing Kiel, Germany

Freedom Flotilla to Gaza nearing Kiel, Germany  Sailing for the Right to a Just Future for Palestine

***Breaking News Just before noon local time, the Freedom Flotilla vessel Al Awda (The Return) was boarded by the German Coast Guard, at the orders of the German Ministry of Interior. They collected all the passports on board, wrote down everyone’s personal data, searched the vessel thoroughly, asked for detailed information about ports of call along the way to Gaza, and inquired about the whereabouts of the Swedish sailing boats traveling with us in parallel. The Scandinavian crew on this ship are all veterans of earlier Freedom Flotillas and attested that they have previously been harassed by other Coast Guards from European countries. Of course, our vessel is in international waters and doing nothing illegal.– and this is by no means standard procedure. The massive German Coast Guard ship had been tailing Al Awda all morning, and finally sent a rubber dinghy with a crew of four to check it out.  We are within an hour-and-a-half of Kiel, having arrived early, and are moving slowly so that the sailboats can catch up with us and we can all arrive in unison at Kiel harbour.  Reporting from the high seas off the coast of northern Germany. Al Awda (The Return) Hurriya (Freedom), Falestine (Palestine) Mairead (for Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire) The boats are scheduled to arrive in Kiel from Copenhagen on Wednesday May 23 and will be in port until Friday morning May 25. A reception is expected at 6PM. The boats will visit European ports on their way to challenge the illegal Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza in late July. The Freedom Flotilla is sailing in 2018 for the Right to a Just Future for Palestine. We challenge the blockade of Gaza and demand an end to our governments’ complicity with the blockade, which has created a humanitarian crisis, with civilians lacking clean water, electricity, and medical care. For more information about our mission and about the blockade of Gaza, see  https://jfp.freedomflotilla.org/about-just-future-palestine Participants on board Al Awda include Zohar Chamberlain Regev, Israeli Spanish resident and Freedom Flotilla Coalition boat leader; Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer from the United States; Mikkel Grüner, Danish national and city councillor in Bergen, Norway; indigenous activist Heather Milton-Lightening from Canada, professor of Business Nazari Ismail and CEO of MyCARE Malaysia Kamarul Zaman, both from Malaysia; sailor and human rights advocateCharlie Andreasson from Sweden. On Thursday afternoon May 24 in Kiel, the boats will be met by Reiner Braun, Co-President of the International Peace Bureau in Berlin. Braun comments: “The blockade of Gaza violates the human rights of Palestinian civilians. If unaddressed the blockade is likely to lead to more war in the future as it has in the past. As peace advocates we must challenge this human rights violation and end it.”