{"id":5025,"date":"2016-10-07T17:11:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T15:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/?p=5025"},"modified":"2016-10-11T16:51:07","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T14:51:07","slug":"meps-speak-out-for-wbg-despite-silencing-by-plenary-chairman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/news\/meps-speak-out-for-wbg-despite-silencing-by-plenary-chairman","title":{"rendered":"MEPs speak out for WBG despite silencing by plenary Chairman"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

On the invitation of Members of European Parliament from the GUE-GNL\u00a0group, Women’s Boat to Gaza representatives met with MEPs in\u00a0Strasbourg on 4 and 5 October. Our request for MEPs to demand the safe\u00a0passage of Zaytouna-Oliva<\/em> was supported by 45\u00a0European<\/a>\u00a0parliamentarians, including our host in Strasbourg, Malin Bj\u00f6rk, who\u00a0accompanied the Zaytouna-Oliva<\/em> on the first leg of her journey, from
\nBarcelona to Ajaccio.<\/p>\n

However, during the 6 October plenary session on human rights, the\u00a0chairman Alexander Graf Lambsdorff refused to give the floor to Pascal\u00a0Durand, French\u00a0MEP from the Green Party. He had asked to speak in defence of\u00a0our peaceful mission and to oppose the Israeli attack on the Zaytouna-Oliva<\/em> which had occurred the day before, in international waters. When Malin Bj\u00f6rk attempted to raise the matter, she\u00a0was cut off<\/a>, supposedly based\u00a0on a procedural rule which prohibits the addition of agenda\u00a0items. She comments: “My goal was to inform all of the Members of the European Parliament that Israel once again had stopped a peaceful\u00a0attempt to break the illegal blockade of Gaza. I also wanted to ask\u00a0everyone to act for the safety and immediate release of my fellow\u00a0Women’s Boat to Gaza activists.”<\/p>\n

MEP Bj\u00f6rk continues:\u00a0 “the fact that the chairman cut my microphone<\/a>\u00a0off and did not allow me to finish speaking, is of course an attempt\u00a0to silence the voices demanding peace and justice. But we will not be\u00a0silenced. We will continue to work for an end to the illegal blockade\u00a0and we will continue to show support for Palestinian women.”<\/p>\n

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Women’s Boat to Gaza organizers are deeply disappointed by the\u00a0negative attitude of the plenary chairman, which is in complete contradiction with the democratic values which the European Parliament\u00a0is supposed to promote and protect. We are grateful to those brave\u00a0voices which continue to speak up in Strasbourg, Brussels and\u00a0elsewhere for Palestinian human rights and against the illegal blockade of\u00a0Gaza.<\/p>\n

\"wbg_malin\"

MEP Malin Bj\u00f6rk (right) with WBG participants Jald\u00eda Abubakra, Ellen Huttu-Hanson and Zohar Chamberlain Regev, at the EU Parliament (Wednesday 5 October 2016).<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the invitation of Members of European Parliament from the GUE-GNL\u00a0group, Women’s Boat to Gaza representatives met with MEPs in\u00a0Strasbourg on 4 and 5 October. Our request for MEPs to demand theRead More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5026,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,72],"tags":[8,90,23,88,21,89,9],"class_list":["post-5025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-solidarity","tag-freedom-flotilla","tag-green-party","tag-guengl","tag-malin-bjork","tag-meps","tag-pascal-durand","tag-womens-boat"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.0","language":"it","enabled_languages":["en","es","ar","fr","it"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"ar":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"fr":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"it":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5025"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5143,"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5025\/revisions\/5143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wbg.freedomflotilla.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}