The PA condemns "Israeli measures to silence the voices of truth"

Anna Nillson from Sweden and Anna Lenna Di Govani from Italy are the latest in a growing number of human rights volunteers that Israel has denied entrance to as a way of preventing them from entering the West Bank and Gaza.

The Palestinian Government issued a statement yesterday "Condemning Israeli occupation measures which aim to silence the voices of truth".

According to the Palestinian Minister of State, Quaddura Faris, "The Israeli government is trying to cover up its crimes against the Palestinian land and people, especially those crimes relating to the settlement project known as the Wall. They are doing this by following, arresting, and deporting members of international solidarity movements. The Israeli government is afraid that these people explain Israeli policies and reveal Israeli crimes to the public in their countries. The Palestinian government appreciates the position of all who stand in solidarity with legitimate Palestinian rights.""
yes2wind.co.nz - Greenpeace
Anna joined other internationals including Israelis, and Palestinians in a three week march last summer along the route of the Israeli Apartheid wall. The Freedom March was part of a campaign organized by the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) a Palestinian led organization supporting nonviolent resistance to the Israeli Occupation. Yesterday she attempted to reenter the country only to discover that she had been added to Israel's Kafkaesque blacklist of people considered "security threats" by the state of Israel. Anna was denied entry and sent to Ethiopia. ISM has documented over one hundred such cases since April of 2002.

Pat O'Conner an ISM volunteer who is currently awaiting deportation in Maasiyahu Prison explains: "Israel denies access to the occupied territories to any international visitor who they feel takes a position in solidarity with the Palestinian people while internationals coming to support the settlers are welcomed".

O'Connor was arrested on January 24 by Israeli security agents after planting olive seedlings in the village of Biddu with Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights supporters. During the arrest, the security agents claimed that he was carrying a false Irish passport. However, the Irish embassy has confirmed the validity of O'Connor's passport. Furthermore, the Palestinian Authority has issued a letter acknowledging Mr. O'Connor's human rights work and inviting O'Connor to remain in the Occupied Palestine Territories. Still, Israel is deporting him.

Israeli attorney Gaby Lasky states "that "Israel conveniently turns humanitarian activists into security threats with the cynical use of 'security considerations'." She is demanding that Israel declassify the blacklist and publish the criteria determining who should be denied entry.

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“Stand out firmly for Justice as witness before God, even against yourselves, against your kin and against your parents, against people who are rich or poor. Do not follow your inclinations or desires lest you deviate from Justice. Remember, God is the best of Protectors and well acquainted with all that you do.”
-Qur’an 4:135

"Don't be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there's no poverty to be seen because the poverty's been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don't be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there's no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces."
--Jean Paul Marat, 18th Century French Visionary (and revolutionary), murdered in his bathtub by Royalist Charlotte Corday