NGO Action News – 30 April 2015

This newsletter informs about recent and upcoming activities of Civil Society Organizations affiliated with the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The Committee and the Division for Palestinian Rights of the UN Secretariat provide the information “as is” without warranty of any kind, and do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, or reliability of the information contained in the websites linked in the newsletter.

NGO Action News
30 April 2015

ASIA

• Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) Thailand will organize a Public Meeting in Bangkok on 7 May. PSC Thailand and the BDS Campaigns will report on their activities and launch their online fundraising campaign for Palestinian refugee families in Bangkok.

• PSC Thailand will also hold its annual commemoration of the Nakba in Bangkok on 19 May. The theme will be “One Year After Operation Cast Lead: The State of Palestinian Civil Society Today”.

EUROPE

• PSC organised a Palestine Awareness Day in Birmingham on 3 May and will organise a Walk for Palestine in London on 9 May.

• A Conversation with the Palestinian author and human rights activist Susan Abulhawa will take place in London on 2 June. The event is organised by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Palestine Society (University of London), Bloomsbury Press and Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

• After completing a tour in the West Bank, the Freedom Theatre will showcase its new production in the UK from 13 May to 20 June. The play is inspired by the real stories of a group of militants who during the height of the second Intifada took refuge in the Church of the Nativity.

• The UK Chapter of the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions will hold its Annual Spring Conference in London on 30 May.

• “Le Comité pour une paix juste au Proche Orient” (CPJPO) is organizing a series of events in the framework of its project “Spring for Palestine”.

• Running Team Palestine organised a race in Liege, Belgium on 3 May. The next race will take place in Brussels on 31 May.

• The Nederlands Palestina Komitee is organizing several exhibitions and screenings during the month of May.

• The UK Chapter of Israeli Committee against House Demolitions just launched its new website.

ISRAEL

• Zochrot invited its supporters to join the March of Return to a Palestinian village destroyed in the 1948 war, organized by the Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Displaced People in Israel.

NORTH AMERICA

• On 22 April, the Student Senate of Earham College in Indiana, USA, passed a resolution in support of divestment from companies directly involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine: Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, and Caterpillar.

• A special meeting of the New York Comics and Picture-story Symposium was held on 22 April at Parsons college. At the event “Beyond Handala: Editorial Cartooning and Comics in Palestine”, Mohammad Saba’aneh, editorial cartoonist for the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadid, shared his work and the work of his fellow Palestinian cartoonists, and discussed the landscape for cartooning and comics under Israeli occupation and beyond.

• American Friends of UNRWA invites its supporters to its fourth annual Gaza 5K walk/run on 16 May 2015 in Washington, DC to show solidarity with the children of Gaza.

• The Critical Palestine Studies Association hosted on 29 April a book talk with the scholar Norman Finkelstein entitled “Method and Madness: The hidden story of Israel’s assaults on Gaza” at the City University of New York.

• The Israel-Palestine Working Group held a conversation on the Palestinian Economy on 24 April.

• Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the New School in New York are inviting participants to attend an event on the Political Economy of Palestine: Challenges of Colonialism and Neoliberalism on 8 May.

UNITED NATIONS

• The Working Group of the Palestinian Rights Committee met on 27 April and heard a briefing from Defense for Children International-Palestine on its recent report “Operation Protective Edge: A War Waged on Gaza’s Children”.

• The Palestinian Rights Committee held its meeting on Friday 1 May and approved two requests from civil society organizations to be accredited to the Committee and one request for observer status.