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Watch this space for notice of events either organised by IHRC, or related to our work. we will aslo produce reports about recent events on this page.
July 1997
Friday 4th: Vigil outside the Indian High Commission in London, UK.
Thursday 10th: Vigil outside the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group on Nigeria Meeting, Malborough House, London, UK.
Saturday 12th: Vigil outside 10 Downing Street, to commemorate the 2nd anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia.
August 1997
Friday 1st: Vigil opposite Israeli High Commission, UK, to commemorate the eigt anniversary of the kidnap of Sheikh Obaid from Lebanon by Israeli commandos. The vigil will take place on Kensington High Street, London opposite Kensington Gardens from 2.30 p.m. - 5.30 p.m. See below for details.
Jibchit Village, Lebanon. 1989, July 28 0100 hours.
Israeli fighter planes fly overhead in an air raid, whose purpose is to mask the noise of the helicopters that will bring Israeli commandos to the village of Sheikh Abdulkareem Obaid. Sheikh Obaid is Jibchit's preacher. He is also a vocal opponent to continued Israeli invasions of and violent intervention in Lebanon.
“They stormed our house and pointed a gun at me and my mother and tied us up. Then they blindfolded my father and the two others and took them away.”*
This is the eyewitness testimony of Saged, one of Sheikh Abdulkareem Obaid's five young children, about the dreadful events that took his father away from him. Other eyewitnesses describe how the commandos stormed into the bedroom of the young mother, hit her and tied her and her children up. Neighbours who came out when they heard the disturbance, were shot at by the retreating commandos. One was killed, shot through the head at close range.
To this day, Saged and his other brothers and sisters have not seen their father again. The youngest was only three months old when her father was kidnapped. What did their father do to deserve this treatment? Together with him, his cousin Ahmed Obaid and a friend Ashem Fahs were also kidnapped. They are not the only hostages taken by Israel from Lebanon. Hundreds are still in prison, held like Sheikh Obaid without charge and without access to legal representation. Thousands died in captivity in the 1980s under the same conditions - many in the notorious Khiam prison camp, whose torturous regime is infamous around the globe.
Today, we are protesting at the continuing imprisonment of Sheikh Obaid and all those held unjustly by the Israeli authorities, whatever their political, racial or religious backgrounds.
Please help us, by registering your disgust at the activities of the Israeli government with the Israeli Embassy in your country; the embassy of its biggest ally, the United States of America; and your own government.
We are lucky - we can raise our voices against oppression. Please do so today.
* source The New York Times July 29, 1989
Many thanks.
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