[antiwar-van] FOR IMM RLS: Vancouver Antiwar Rally demands End the Occupations Now!

[Kira Koshelanyk]

Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO) and 
Iranian Community Against War (ICAW)
www.mawovancouver.org 
info at mawovancouver.org
http://www.icaw.blogspot.com
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MONTHLY ANTIWAR RALLY
 
END THE OCCUPATIONS OF Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine & Haiti!
U.S. HANDS OFF Iran & Pakistan!
SELF DETERMINATION FOR Indigenous Nations, Tamils & All Oppressed Nations!
STOP the Sri Lankan Government’s War on the Tamil People!
 
SATURDAY April 25
2:00pm
Vancouver Art Gallery
750 Hornby Street at Robson Street
Downtown Vancouver, BC
 
Media Contact: Janine Solanki 604.812.2964
 
For 7 and a half years, the governments of Canada, US and NATO members have denied the Afghan people to their basic rights to life, dignity and self determination. All conditions of life have deteriorated for people in Afghanistan, and over 50,000 Afghan people have been killed in this unjust, criminal war drive. For people in Canada the brutal reality of this war is hitting home, as the 117th soldier, 21 year old Karine Blais, was killed on Monday April 13, followed by comments from her godfather who told reporters "I think she did this for absolutely nothing." On Thursday April 23rd yet another soldier died, bringing the toll to the 3rd women and 118th soldier killed in Afghanistan. She was found dead in her sleeping quarters, and although her cause of death was not released, often similar cases come down to suicide, an end result of many soldiers seeing the horrors of the war they are engaged in. This occupation is not just continuing, it is escalating, with 21,000 more US troops being sent to Afghanistan. This war drive has already expanded to Pakistan, where the US government has used the excuse of Taliban militants to launch missile drone attacks on Pakistan. Since August 2008, over 37 drone attacks have killed over 360 people in Pakistan (AFP). 
 
In Iraq, March 19th marked the sixth year of bloodshed at the hands of the US/UK occupiers. War, bombings, house raids, and shootings have amounted to the destruction of Iraq and the deaths of over 1.2 million Iraqi’s, a figure that has not been updated since September 2007. In Palestine, over 61 years of heroic struggle of the Palestinian people for their self determination continues, despite of the recent genocidal siege on Gaza by the Israeli racist Zionist government. In this massacre, over 1,400 Palestinian people were killed, half of whom were women and children.

“Currently the Tamil people in Sri Lanka, who for decades have been fighting for their self determination, have come under intensified and vicious attack from the government of Sri Lanka that has erupted into a full scale massacre of Tamil people,” stated MAWO co-chair Janine Solanki. Between 150,000 to 200,000 Tamil people are trapped in the combat zone, bombarded by shelling from the Sri Lankan Army. The UN estimates (a conservative estimate) that over 6,500 civilians have been killed and 13,000 wounded in the last three months. 
 
Working and poor people at home and abroad are coming under attack. Many are fighting back to demand their basic rights to life, dignity and their ignored self determination. As this new era of war and occupation is devastating humanity, peace loving people must join together, and will be rallying today to demand an end to war and occupation. 
 
For poster click:
http://www.mawovancouver.org/materials/posters/090425rally.pdf
 
-30- 

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