FORMER U.S. REP. CYNTHIA McKINNEY HELD IN DETENTION CENTER REFUSES TO SIGN ISRAELI DEPORTATION PAPERS!
02. Jul, 2009
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Former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Georgia, refuses to sign Israeli deportation papers, the U.S. Embassy says.
McKinney was among those on a ship that the Israeli Defense Forces said violated an Israeli blockade and crossed into Gazan waters on Tuesday.
The Israeli navy gained control of the ship and took McKinney and about 20 people into custody, said the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group that sent the ship.
The group said the ship, which it calls Spirit of Humanity, was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.
McKinney served six terms in the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Georgia and was the Green Party’s 2008 presidential nominee.
The ex-lawmaker is in the Givon immigration detention center in the central Israeli city of Ramle, the U.S. Embassy said.
She has been given deportation papers but has refused to sign them, the embassy said.
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She will be held for three more days, assuming she does not sign the papers, and then will be sent back to the United States, the embassy added.
The location of others taken into custody was not immediately known.
The IDF said the ship, which it called the Arion, had been warned while at sea that it would not be allowed to enter Gazan waters “because of security risks in the area and the existing naval blockade.”
The IDF said the cargo boat disregarded all warnings and entered Gazan coastal waters. An Israeli navy force intercepted, boarded and took control of the vessel, directing it toward Ashdod, Israel, the IDF said.
The boat’s crew would “be handed over to the proper authorities,” the military said.
Without naming who was on the boat, the IDF confirmed that the incident was the same detailed by the Free Gaza Movement.
According to the Free Gaza group, McKinney said, “This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip” before authorities confiscated cell phones.
Also aboard was Mairead Maguire, who co-founded a group that worked for peace in Northern Ireland. Maguire and co-founder Betty Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for their work.
Free Gaza said the voyage is the eighth such trip the group has launched. Five succeeded, the group said, but the Israeli military stopped attempts in January 2008 and December.
SOURCE: www.alexander-munch.blogspot.com
AFAIAC the IDF seems to be acting more and more like the SS. Coincidence? I think not… all totalitarian regimes act the same, just the uniforms are different.
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Its very simple, The Israelis want to starve Gazans to death in the least PR-damaging way. Bombing seems to earn them bad press. Blockades, starvation and disease are their new weapons of choice. An extended Kristallnacht has descended on Gaza.
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words fail me
i would ask the israeli people, where is your heart, do you have one, open to these people who suffer, love your neighbor, open your heart
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I felt a great deal of anguish as I read this article; but I was not surprised. After seeing what Israel did in Gaza during the war, the devastation inflicted on unarmed and trapped people, and the phosphorus bombs dropped on the civilians, and hundreds of toddlers burnt and killed, I am convinced that history will judge the Israelis as the barbarians of the modern age.
Yesh Prabhu, Plainsboro, NJ
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