22 March 2009

OTTAWA, (PIC)-- Different international media outlets reported Friday that the Canadian immigration ministry had declared British lawmaker George Galloway persona non grata in the country because of many reasons including his support for the Hamas Movement.

Spokesman for the Canadian immigration minister Alykhan Velshi blatantly said that Canada does not intend to roll out the red carpet for MP Galloway who feels proud of giving financial support to Hamas, an organization that is banned in Canada.

According to the British newspaper the Sun, Mr Galloway was due to make a speech in Toronto, the second largest city in Canada, on March 30 following a US lecture tour.

For his part, Galloway vowed Friday to use all means to challenge the decision taken by immigration minister Jason Kenny, which denied him entry to Canada to give a series of speeches.

Galloway explored with organizers of his speaking tour and with legal advisors to challenge the decision, which he condemned as an "idiotic ban" and an affront to Canada’s good name.

"This decision has further vindicated the anti-war movement's contention that unjust wars abroad will end up consuming the very liberties that make us who we are," Galloway underlined.

Galloway was dismissed from the British labor party in 2003, in a step considered a contradiction to the principals of democracy Britain claims to have, after he described former US president George Bush and the then British premier Tony Blair as behaving like "wolves" in Iraq.

IOF troops wound two US activists and one Palestinian in weekly Bil'in protest

Meanwhile, three protesters including two US activists were wounded when IOF troops shot rubber-coated bullets at them and many others suffered suffocation as a result of inhaling tear gas during the weekly anti-wall Bil'in demonstration.

The peaceful protest, which is organized by Palestinian citizens from Bil'in village and foreign activists, started as usual after the Friday prayer, where the protesters carried Palestinian flags and banners calling for resisting the occupation, the apartheid wall and settlement expansion.

In Al-Masara village, close to Bethlehem in the West Bank, two Palestinian women and a nine-year-old child were wounded when IOF troops attacked and battered them with rifle butts and batons during a non-violent anti-wall protest organized at noon Friday. The demonstration was dedicated to Palestinian mothers on the international mothers' day.

West of Salfit city in the West Bank, a bunch of Israeli settlers escorted by IOF troops assaulted Palestinian farmers from the village of Deir Istiya, blocked them from reaching their agricultural lands and confiscated their ID cards.

A weekly report covering the Israeli violations between 12-18 March prepared by the Palestinian center for human rights said the IOF troops carried out 39 incursions and wounded 20 Palestinian civilians including nine children in the West Bank.

The report added that during the incursions, the IOF troops kidnapped 36 Palestinians including six children.

The report underlined that the IOF troops, during this one-week period, demolished five Palestinian homes in eastern Jerusalem at the pretext of unlicensed construction leading to the displacement of five families composed of 49 individuals, adding that IOF troops also ordered 40 Palestinian people from three families to evacuate their homes, which are scheduled to be demolished.

It said that the IOF troops demolished a house belonging to Ghazi Al-Qaimari, in which 13 people live, in the Al-Mashtal suburb near the entrance of Elizaria village, southeast of Jerusalem.

According to Qaimari, he obtained all the necessary licenses from the local council of Elizaria village three years ago, when the house was built in area "B" (under Palestinian civil jurisdiction according to the Oslo accords), but the IOF troops claimed that the area is classified as area "C" (under full Israeli civil and security jurisdiction).

During the reporting period, Israeli settlers living in Kiryat Arba and Kharsina settlements, east and northeast of Al-Khalil city, placed six mobile homes in the vicinity of the two settlements in the context of settlement expansion.

The IOF troops continued, in this period, to bulldoze areas of Palestinian land in Um Lasfa village, southeast of Al-Khalil, to establish a new road to the south of Karma'il settlement.