[IPSM] ONE YEAR in Sanctuary! - FRIDAY FEBRUARY 18th: Rally in Solidarity with the Ayoub Family

[No One is Illegal Montreal]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 09:56:31 -0800 (PST)
From: Palestinian Refugees - Montreal <refugees at riseup.net>


ONE YEAR in Sanctuary!
Rally in Solidarity with the Ayoub Family

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FRIDAY FEBRUARY 18th, 4 - 6pm
Citizenship & Immigration Canada
1010 St. Antoine West
(metro Bonaventure)
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In February 2004, one year ago, the Ayoub family held their first press
conference at Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grace church, to announce to people
in Montreal, throughout Canada and the world their defiance of a
deportation order issued by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Under an
imminent threat of deportation by Immigration Canada, the Ayoub family was
forced to join the growing number of refugees in Canada taking sanctuary
in churches.

The Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees will be
holding a picket outside of the Montreal's offices of Citizenship and
Immigration Canada to mark the one-year anniversary of the Ayoub's
decision to take sanctuary and to demand the end to the deportation and
for the immediate regularization of all Palestinian refugees including the
Ayoub family.

The Ayoub family, who are essentially incarcerated in the basement of
Notre-Dame-de-Grace church, have become a symbol of the ongoing struggle
against Palestinian deportations from Canada. Currently more than 100
Palestinian refugees in Canada face imminent deportation, some to the
United States, where they could end up in indefinite detention. Most of
the refugees facing deportation are from the refugee camps of Lebanon and
from the Occupied Territories.

The Ayoub family was expelled from Palestine in 1948 and has since endured
wars, massacres, a life of statelessness and systematic discrimination in
a 56-year-old refugee camp in Lebanon. They came to Canada to claim
refugee status in hope of finding security and an end to their suffering,
only to be confined to the basement of Notre-Dame-de-Grace Church in
Montreal, as they continue to face forced deportation to the Palestinian
refugee camp of Ein El-Helweh in Lebanon.

This rally will also draw attention to the growing sanctuary movement of
refugee s throughout Canada. Currently there are three other publically
known sanctuary cases in Canada, Amir Kazemian an Iranian refugee in
Vancouver, the Vega family, Colombian refugees also in Montreal and
Guatemalan refugee Sergio Loreto Garcia currently in sanctuary in
Vancouver. Those refugees currently in sanctuary are part of a larger
movement of immigrant and refugee communities, who are collectively
organizing against deportation, detention and for the full regularization
of all immigrants & refugees in Canada.

We must stand united against the injustice faced by the Palestinian
refugees who are set to be deported from Canada in the coming months. We
must demand that the Ayoub family is granted full regularization
immediately.

Your support, solidarity and participation are urgently needed!

Organized by:
the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees
Info: 514.859.9070 / refugees at riseup.net

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